status:
International Concept Design Competition Energizing Cities, winning project, ongoing
year:
2024
place:
Tirana, Albania
client:
Albania National Territorial Planning Agency, Municipality of Tirana
with:
Baukuh, Sam Chermayeff Office, Muoto, Atmos Lab, Arkimade, Simon Boudivin, Bollinger+Grohmann
description:
The new outdoor spaces of the Instituti I Ndërtimit area consist of an extensive rocky landscape that extends over the entire site, allowing complete permeability and creating a new urban connection with Rruga Muhamet Gjollesha. This mineral landscape composes a unique surface that collects gathering areas, circulation, and access spaces. Starting from Rruga Muhamet Gjollesha, there is a dense group of trees that leads to the site, unveiling an uncommon scenery, where the geological memory of the region re-emerges in a spectacular and unexpected manner. The garden so corresponds to the unusual and yet deeply contextual nature of the tower, creating a collection of spaces where the same rocky material is transformed in finishing, dimension, and form, from smooth stone slabs to gravel, overlapping stones, or even boulders grouped or isolated. The geological eloquence of the gardens corresponds to a careful reading of an urban context that has repeatedly changed in recent years and will change again in the future. The stone landscape is both striking and adaptive, reacting with pragmatism to the constraints of the site and the monumentality of the architecture while creating an impressive environment of its own. The garden hosts plants isolated or in small groups and water features, like geysers, vaporization, and irrigation. The project aims to create microclimatic areas where groups can gather and engage with the site: a rocky pocket park that embraces the street’s presence, reinforcing the urban network of Rruga Muhamet Gjollesha and beyond, unveiling the relevance of the Albanian rocky landscape at a territorial scale.
realistic visualization:
Fusao
