_{DRAGOS TOACA}

Dragoș Toacă is a Romanian architect and independent researcher whose work explores how architectural design—paired with technological innovation—can regenerate rural landscapes through pragmatic, site-specific strategies for productive land use. His focus lies in addressing the structural fragilities of Eastern European countrysides, where demographic decline, land abandonment, and fragmented infrastructure demand new territorial imaginaries rooted in both ecological care and economic realism.

His professional trajectory was shaped by formative years at Studio Muoto and Bruther—two Paris-based architecture practices renowned for their radical pragmatism and deep engagement with peripheries. Drawing on this background, Toacă redirected his attention to the rural condition—not as a nostalgic retreat, but as a frontline for social and environmental innovation. He argues that the countryside must be reframed not as a passive landscape but as a space of experimentation—capable of absorbing complexity and supporting new models of living and working.

Toacă coined the term technoruralism^© to define this position: an architectural framework that integrates low-cost industrial systems, agricultural logics, and circular economies within adaptive, infrastructure-driven architectures. Rather than aestheticising rurality, technoruralism confronts issues of material availability, seasonal cycles, workforce instability, and the precarious economics of small and mid-sized farms—as well as adaptable rural housing. It asks how design can mediate between globalised supply chains and local resilience.

His long-term research programme combines fieldwork, spatial prototyping, and territorial policy analysis to develop scalable strategies—such as modular farm typologies, cooperative housing models, and agro-logistic hubs—that can be implemented within existing EU-aligned agricultural frameworks. These interventions reinterpret standardised materials through vernacular techniques and reuse logics, generating buildings that are legible, flexible, and culturally grounded.

Through this work, Toacă aims to move beyond romantic or abstract notions of sustainability and propose grounded, operative models for rural transformation. His research contributes to a broader rethinking of how architecture can engage the rural territory—not as a static heritage to preserve, but as a dynamic field for climate adaptation, economic renewal, spatial justice, and policy innovation.

mail: contact@dragostoaca.com
ig: dragostoaca

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