The Danube Delta in Romania, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is allegedly one of the most successful rewilding projects in Europe. However, Western governance models for protected areas suffered disparate reinterpretations at national and regional levels, resulting in corrupt ‘green governance’ that endangers the entire area and faces strong resistance from local communities.

The project investigates the possibilities of architecture as a catalyst for political and environmental change. Building upon the findings of two weeks of fieldwork conducted in Letea, Romania, the project condemns the current management plan of the Danube Delta and articulates the pressing need for a reconfiguration of the governance model, advocating for a participatory, bottom-up policy-making process.

Using Letea as a testbed, the proposal translates local everyday experience - drawing attention to contradictory environmental regulations and framing the changes enacted by poor policy choices. It is an architecture of protest that accompanies and enhances existing resistance acts and hosts localised deliberation spaces, where international, national, and local authorities engage with the context they affect.