nest and branch: a manual for play amidst rapid change

AMRA ALAGIC, LARA KUROSKY and LEAH DYKSTRA

In proposing a tactical design scheme for a neighbourhood in Tirana, Albania, we purposely kept it simple. For us, it is not a design project in the sense of creating a final product, but rather a blueprint to strengthen an already self-sufficient community dealing with displacement and urban change. We have called our project Nest and Branch, because the proposal starts in Njësia Bashkiake Nr. 9 and reaches out to other parts of the city. The name recognises the main building blocks of our tool-kit: eggs and poles. Working with a 73-acre site, we want to have identifiable forms which visually connect all its different parts. Our inflatable forms, eggs, are used for seating and makeshift shapes for play, while the poles provide structure for demountable installations. Other materials in our toolkit are found around the site. All these forms and materials are part of a design manual aimed at fostering collective action within the community of Njësia Bashkiake Nr. 9. The toolkit shows residents how to combine objects such as poles, inflatable forms, crates, fabric and pallets to make play bars, installations and even impermanent shelters.

The Nest and Branch scheme considers social and political structures at play within the site. The national government plans to completely redesign Njësia Bashkiake Nr. 9 under the Tirana 2030 masterplan, led by Stefano Boeri Architetti. The designs released to the public so far have conflicting values. Some highlight the transformation of the land to a forest while others only include mid-rise block neighbourhoods. The only thing they all have in common is keeping the community uninformed, and softening their voices to implement projects. Demolitions are occurring throughout the city to make way for the idealistic masterplan. The conflicting nature of the designs shown to the public paired with significant demolitions, such as the removal of the Albanian National Theatre, has triggered protests advocating for conservation.

Our approach is rooted in community-led initiatives as a way to counteract the top-down changes taking place in the city. Playfulness and childlike enjoyment is at the forefront of the Nest and Branch project, offering residents a retreat from the political intensity of the city.

Problem: The boulevard adjacent to Njësia Bashkiake Nr. 9, running north-south from the city’s centre, is one of the first redesigns to take place within the city for Tirana 2030. A useful network of streets and housing has already been demolished, breaking links within the community. The boulevard, unfinished and leading to nowhere in particular, is partially used. The construction of new luxury apartment buildings within the housing district has also begun. This construction has encroached onto public space bringing dust, noise and unaffordable replacements to the existing housing supply.

Proposal: Inspired by the work of Claude Cormier et Associés, Nest and Branch uses a tool-kit of public installations to help invigorate the neighbourhood. We propose dividing the site into four sections: the Transit Market, the Park and Plaza, the Living Meadow, and Upper Commons. These zones use the spaces in between construction and housing.

The site is open and next to the boulevard. Zones from north to south: Upper Commons, Living Meadow, Park and Plaza, community garden, fruit farm, maker’s space, and the market.

1. The Transit Market consists of four symbiotic areas: market, maker’s space, fruit farm and community garden. We suggest that the existing market be replaced with an easily disassembled configuration that connects to the new boulevard. It will be a cyclical network within the housing district, enabling residents to collaborate, share and sell assets. It will leverage common activities found within the district, such as gardening, sorting, collecting and farming. The Transit Market imagines different tool-kit combinations to shape spaces that bring common household activities to a communal level.

The new boulevard is a few metres higher than the entrance to the existing market, providing no feasible entry from above. This market is designed to begin at the height of the new boulevard and step down gradually with the natural slope of the site.

2. The Park and Plaza will be the main gathering space for the community. Nest and Branch proposes different configurations for different activities in this area. With the toolkit residents can tailor their surroundings to suit their needs, whether it’s a space for play, performance or shelter. This area also thinks of how the community can encroach on surrounding construction, allowing residents to take back space that is no longer designated for them.

Current conditions on the site area, as well as in the neighbouring communities were assessed to provide inspiration for the tool kit.

3. The Living Meadow expands and tests the user’s senses. This area consists of an abundance of wildflowers, a raised walkway to make apparent the change in textures from earth to walkway to sidewalk, and hanging chairs to protect from noise or to invite kinder sounds.The largest area of the site, the meadow creates space for plants to grow and animals to roam, although future and planned construction will undoubtedly change the ways these animals can continue to safely roam. Simple tools such as posts and tethers can support the continuation of urban agriculture in this space. They can also double as play structures.

Vegetated channels slow stormwater runoff and treat dirty water with plants and soil. The raised walkway aims to make the interaction with the ground intentional.

4. The Upper Commons: much of Albania lies within an EU-designated High Seismic Hazard zone. The last significant earthquake was in 2019 with a magnitude of 6.4, thirty-four kilometres northwest of Tirana. Hundreds of buildings partially or completely collapsed, and thousands of people were living in temporary accommodations. Considering how emergency housing might exist on site, we propose temporary housing based on a modular kit of posts, poles quickly assembled. This is a scaled-up toolkit, conceptually similar to the open space toolkit elsewhere on the site. Iinstead of master plans in all their rigidity, the redevelopment of any city could be framed by zones and toolkits.

The conceptual house module kit includes materials for an 18 square metre shelter. The materials consist of poles acting as beams and posts, wall panels, a floor panel, a sheet of corrugated metal, and tires. Tires are used for stairs and the foundation as they can absorb seismic vibrations.

below: 1: Transit Market, 2: The Living Meadow, 3: Upper Commons

Locals have forged their own paths on the ground through consistent use; none of these were eliminated within our proposal. Most of the high-rise apartments in the western portion of the site began construction in late 2020.

At its core, Nest and Branch rethinks how community needs can be addressed through concepts of play contrary to the conventional approach of singular problem-solution thinking. The concept of play within Nest and Branch can be thought of in two ways. Firstly, as the adaptability of tool-kit combinations to evolve, and secondly as the manual’s ability to bring enjoyment and fun into everyday life.

AMRA ALAGIC recently earned her BArch, Carleton University. She previously worked as a designresearcher at Collective Domain, a practice for spatial analysis, urban activism, architecture and media in the public interest.

LE AH DYKSTRA , recent Bachelor of Architecture, is currently pursuing a Master of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University. Her current research interests focus on temporality in urban design.

LARA KUROSKY, B Arch, currently works as a Landscape Technician at Architecture 49. She is passionate about understanding the city landscape and its impact on our social systems.