Meze Audio, the National University of Arts Bucharest, and "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism have concluded the first edition of MEZE ATELIER, a four-month mentorship and design programme built around concept development, materiality, and form language; explored through the lens of timeless design and honest craftsmanship.
The programme ran as two separate workshops, one with the National University of Arts Bucharest and one with "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, each co-created with the school hosting it.
Both were structured the same way: formal design briefings, individual and team-based projects, and three rounds of mentorship and feedback from industry specialists, culminating in a final design competition.
AN OPPORTUNITY ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BRIEF
MEZE ATELIER was conceived as a working environment rather than a series of lectures. Students were asked to define a problem, defend a direction, and carry an idea from a blank page to a resolved object, with material, cost, and manufacturing constraints in the room from the very beginning. It is a rare thing to encounter while still in school, and it is exactly the thing that separates a beautiful drawing from an object that can actually be made.
Running the programme with both an art and design school and an architecture school was one of the more revealing aspects of the year. The two disciplines arrive at an object from different directions - one through form, material, and gesture, the other through structure, space, and proportion - and watching the same kind of brief develop in two separate rooms showed us how much the starting point shapes everything that follows.
The opportunity ran in both directions. For our team, sitting on the other side of the brief meant seeing how a brief is actually read, what a student takes from it, and where a project begins when it begins from nothing. It meant learning to give feedback that is useful rather than merely correct, and being open to feedback on the feedback itself. Working with a generation that was taught differently than we were is, in the most productive sense, a challenge to your own assumptions.
"This project came as a necessity for the students. It helped them grow more than any other project they could have worked on." Radu Comșa, National University of Arts Bucharest
WHY WE DO THIS
Meze Audio was built in Baia Mare on the belief that objects should be designed to last, repaired rather than replaced, and made by people who care about the details no one sees. MEZE ATELIER is an extension of that belief into education: passing on a way of thinking about form, material, and longevity to the designers and architects who will define the next generation of objects, and doing it here, at home.
Our thanks go to the professors of both universities for their patience, openness, and willingness to find solutions to everything that stood in our way, and to the students for the work and passion they brought to it.
MEZE ATELIER is a collaboration between Meze Audio and each of the Universities: the National University of Arts Bucharest, and "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism.
