SKANDERBEG

Square Not Just A Square

Winner, European Prize for Urban Public Space, 2018

Finalist, Mies Van Der Rohe Award, 2019

Winner, European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention, AADIPA

Skanderbeg Square Renovation

Completed, 2018

Client: Municipality of Tirana

Credits: 51N4E

Role: 2016 - Architectural Assistant; 2017 -2019 - Project Architect

Photo credits: Filip Dujardin, Blerta Kambo

Publicness’, Kosovo Architecture Festival, 2020 https://kosovoarchitecture.com/ajmona-hoxha/

‘Skanderbeg Square’

APSS Crossing Temporary, Synchro, Porto Montenegro, 2018

‘unraveling architecture’ Epoka University, 2017

The project of Skanderbeg Square encompasses two very simple gestures: creating a vast ‘void’ amidst a very densely chaotic urban center of Tirana, as well as enhancing a ‘green’ belt all around it, activated with vavious pavillions and dense trees, shrubs and perennials. The square opens up to the perspective of the prominent monuments around it, which by its geometrical height at its very center potentially counters their previous symbolism by bringing the citizens at the same level as their once prominent pedestals. Although the scale of the square is monumental, it allows for intimacy and yet everydayness.

The green belt around the pyramid acts as a mediator between the full and the empty, by densifying its boundaries with 18 gardens within private and public linings around the monuments with diverse plants, variety of species and lush vegetation. While the pyramid, the square becomes a common ground for togetherness, both symbolically and literally by waving in its pavement 34 types of local stones from albanian territories. Stone paving is implemented in patterns of color codes, each corner in a different colors: red, green, blue, beige, that merge at the center of the square.

Book Building Metropolitan Hybrids

Full Design Commission : from Feasibility Study up to Detailed Design and Site Supervision

Program: Mixed- Use Housing, Office Municipality, Hotels, Retail and Office Facilities, Public Rooftop Plaza, Communal Agora, Public Ground Floor

Client: TDT & Partners

Credits: 51N4E & IRI

Role: 2017 -2021 Project Lead

Book Building projecr encompasses a 42 000 m2 multipurpose development in the heart of Tirana. The site is located on the edge of Skanderbegq Square, next to the mosque and the closk tower, between Toptani Street and 28 Nentori Street. This unique location gives the project a high strategic value in the development of Tirana’s city center.

In the absence of a restricitve set of urban rules, this project is an opportunity to engage in an open dialogue on how we envision densifying the center of Tirana. The project bears a responsibility is showing how this future can be envisioned. We have identified some of the important aspects that make Tirana a unique and high-quality metropolitan center. The project idea translated these different aspects in to a prototype for the future Tirana.

A monumental public staircase is located in front of 10-storey building giving access to a large green terrace, A Public Elevated Plaza

The project bears a responsibility is showing how this future can be envisioned. We have identified some of the important aspects that make Tirana a unique and high-quality metropolitan center. The project idea translated these different aspects in to a prototype for the future Tirana. The center of Tirana has everything to become the place to meet for people from both inside and outside Tirana. A large central park, Skanderbeg Square, a range of public infrastructures, cultural venues and hospitality services will turn Tirana into an attractive destination for people to come together.

The Book Building is co-writing the transformation of downtown Tirana. The projects’ architevture is an expression of a young and dynamic society that is free to invent its own identity. An open and joyful city. The project consists of three solitary buildings that integrate both the small human scale of the city and the big scale of the future metropolis.

Pyramid Of Tirana

TRANSFORMATION

Of The Former Dictatorship

Mausoleum To An Education Center

Full Design Commission : from Feasibility Study up to Detailed Design and Site Supervision

Program: Adaptive-Reuse, Education, Retail

Client: Municiaplity of Tirana

Credits: MVRDV & IRI

Role: 2019 - 2021 | Project Architect

This adaptive re-use design will see this brutalist monument in the heart of Albania’s capital city, once the showpiece of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, dramatically transformed.

The concrete structure is retained and reused, the atrium and its surroundings adorned in greenery and opened up, and a small village of cafes, studios, workshops, and classrooms – where young generations are provided various technology education for free – will permeate the site, both inside and outside the pyramid itself. The Pyramid is thus expected to become a new hub for Tirana’s cultural life and a carrier for the new generation.

This adaptation relies on four straightfoward guestues: Preserving the main structure of the building; Opening it up by changing the fixed glazing box and allowing for a different interios- exterior connection; Using the existing facade as a stairway to the tip of the pyramid; Reartuculating the glazed skin to a micro climatecontrolled glazing system.

Central Riviera Spatial Vision encompasses the main villages along the National Road (SH8) of Qeparo, Borsh, Piqeras, and Lukova, as well as the smaller villages of Upper Qeparo, Qazim Pali and Sasaj. But almost more importantly it encompasses a wealth of natural and semi-natural landscapes and a quasi-pristine coastline of around 15 km. The Central Riviera Spatial Vision combines the preexisting dynamics with new tools such as the preservation of the territory (through the implementation of the Riviera Augmented Landscape), a series of 10 versatile projects, and upgraded infrastructural to invigorate economic development through the prism of tourism.