The existing surroundings of this office complex are in a bad shape. MikeViktorViktor was asked to present a strategy to enhance this ‘rest’ space.
The strategy is threefold. First, what’s left of the existing garden along the perimeter is transformed into a green buffer. By intensifying this area no more further maintenance is needed. Second, the ever expanding parking area is organized in a number of parking islands along two axes running through the site. Third, a new green space is created in the centre. Defined by two rows of Magnolia’s and an undulating grass surface this space works as an outdoor room linking the different entrances. This room is the new face of the complex and can accommodate all kinds of outdoor activities. I love the RAC now…

The site of the youth and sports centre needs a new structure. The design aims at providing an intrinsic plan for the site starting from the current problems laid out by the client. Instead of providing a summary of small solutions for the existing problems a new logic is formulated. A logic that not only solves the current problems but also attempts to be much more.

Located at the crossroads of two of the city’s important streets – one ceremonial, the other a prime mobility street – Frasheri Park becomes a key component of a diverse ensemble of central Tirana public spaces. Part green park, part urban plaza, Frasheri Park establishes a striking setting for contemporary city life with the most basic and humble ingredients. The intensions of the design are to put the existing monuments of the Frasheri Brothers in a new landscape topography of hills — ‘a forest clad in green’ with a terra cotta interior – that maximizes existing mature vegetation on site. The plan creates an intimate green core and a more urban plaza in relation to the main boulevard. The hills offer a variety of spatial settings for play and contemplation with different planting themes.

see what others are saying – unfortunately only in Latvian …

This rehabilitation and design strategy builds upon the foundations of the existing landscape and park elements, carefully highlighting and reinforcing its most promising potentials while selectively editing its problematic areas and setting a new structure in motion to continue to evolve into the future.

Grand Lake Park is five parks in one. As a more broadly differentiated landscape, Grand Lake Park contains 5 distinct character areas that together form a balanced and coherent whole: ‘The Domestic Core’, ‘Forest meets Water’, ‘The Active Forest’, ‘Deep Nature’ and ‘Copa-Tirana’. The new park becomes clearly structured for visitors to access and experience all of its parts, each an invitation to explore the living, dynamic evolution of distinct landscapes over time.

Client: Municipality of Tirana
Design Team: Bart Melort, Marc Ryan, Alexa Nürnberger, Federico Rodriguez, Uli Franzel, Valbona Koçi & Adelina Greca
Tirana Summer Academy, Sponsored by the GTZ, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit

By reconfiguring the latent potentials of the site’s existing topography to maximize spatial experiences, the park’s strategy of intense concentration of differentiated landscapes and public spaces mingles garden ‘rooms’ amongst public institutions, mixing landscape and cultural experiences. The park is as much a ‘heart’ for the city as it is a green ‘lung’. The park concentrates a series of differentiated spaces that are bound together through a central public promenade that unifies a complex site and clearly expresses the idea of one park composed of many garden spaces.

Designed as a flexible framework, the park is conceived to evolve over time according to the changing needs, opportunities and dreams of the city. The park becomes a central condenser of urban and landscape experiences where a citizen can drift into parallel passages through the city, encountering natural and cultural events in a range of spaces that accommodate everything from large social gatherings to intimate escapes.

Client: Municipality of Tirana, in collaboration with Berlage Institute, Rotterdam
Design team: Bart Melort, Bernardina Borra, Alexa Nürnberger, Marc Ryan, Martino Tattara en Lu Zhang
Under the supervision of Edi Rama, Mayor of Tirana
Altin Gagani, Ariela Kushi, Elia Zenghelis and Pier Vittorio Aureli