“Tirana Black and White” ARCHhouse expo_ december 11

a Vertical Story

Slums Invasion_ november 11

A quick challenge @ Challenge Future Competitions

Diagonal Shift (SicilyLAB)_ september 11

Narrative
Diagonal shift_ ledian bregasi, olesja lami, eranda janku

I was just above the train station, to that tiny panoramic plaza, when an entire canyon that is conquered by a light, transparent and minimal wave structure attracted my attention… was that the moment that I decided to take that adventure.
Step after step, after crossing the train station the structure rose in front of me… nothing was touching the existing natural organic wall, but instead  looked like it was protecting and preserving it.
I had two possibilities to undergo through that path, to enter inside a “transparent tunnel”, or even take the straight one on the outer part of the “wave”. Unconsciously I entered the tunnel.
First to notice was that the tunnel was really protecting something, the roots from where all that vegetation was growing. Two steps forward something strange happened. Light started to draw the stripes and intensified while getting closer to something hidden behind the wall. In that moment space exploded and I was in the middle of a Vertical Theatric Stage. That space installation was located in a former Nichie area. That experience brought me to a memory, a CUNTI of Paladini Spectacolo, but actors were acting like puppets.
Getting further the intensity of the sea sound was growing higher, I fasten my steps, and reached an echo amplifier, a real tunnel, a under passage that cuts the wall and reaches the sea side, a way out that canyon. I feel that the end of my journey is close; the final stop is the demolished house where the Traditional Food Fair is located. The smell was driving me toward my favorite food delicacy.
My senses were all activated and in the end, what was left from that quick journey was the felling of a Dream…

OverAll Vision (tirana-durres region)_ august 11

urban design & urban planing study

general issues:

1. inadequate local governance structure 2. informal urban sprawl 3. infrastructure depletion & lack of public transport 4. potential land for agriculture and green tourism 5. degradation of natural resources

governance solution: 

project logo: 

regional proposal: 

group: Olesja, Nana Ama, Julian, Makopoi, Dominic, Alejandra

Loft: Prefab_ july 11

Interior Design Course

Students Dormitory_ july 11

 

Keiserschnitten Wien_ july 11

SOCIAL FILL IN_ Schönbrunn

Keiserschnitten Workshop TUWIEN_ Olesja Lami/ Rezart Struga/ Mamica Burda/ Lorin Çekrezi
Schönbrunn (Royal Castle) is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Vienna. During the year it is visited by 3000 tourists.

First impression_ Site Visit
Our area is located in front of Schönbrunn castle, including the metro station, the existing parking lot, some vast land and a pawed area in front of the royal complex’s entrance. This space is one of the most frequented areas while heading towards the castle. This is related directly with the number of the tourists, but beside the castle’s attraction we noticed a considerable amount of problems. To number the main one’s, what we choose to follow on making this projects are:
1. The first and most problematic fact was the absence of Vienna’s inhabitants
2. A vast and unused land plus a huge unorganized parking lot
3.The partial information that tourists get about Vienna’s character
4.Lack of facilities for tourists and inhabitants
5. Zero frequentation near the river side (Wiental)
After the first analysis we ended up on compiling a diagram about the usage of space by age groups (kids, teenagers, youth, middle age and old age). As we mentioned above the areas that gathered a hugger amount of people (mostly tourists) was the metro station, a path that leads to the castle and its main entrance, beside that there was also a natural park, on the other side of the river frequented by Vienna’s inhabitants. What was very evident was the absence of all groups of ages near the river side.

How to bring Vienna’s inhabitants to the area in front of Schönbrunn?
The first thing we did was an analysis of successful plazas in Vienna. We picked up Naschmark, Stephanplatz, Museum Quartier, Kunsthale and Danube River Side. The aim was to make somehow a mirror effect of their Spacial Success, such a way creating a small scale city in Schönbrunn. We saw that success has to do with the way that space was fragmented, social interaction and clash of age groups.
To underline was the Naschmarkt success, where space was planned as a informal area, thought to bring people close to one-another and offer them facilities that make the Market specifics.
Analyzing this way all the plazas the result was a list of key words as follows: Fragmentation, Hybridization, Informal Formality, Small Scale City, Casual Interaction, Self-Organization, Culture Layering and Modules.

SPACE Proposal
To jump once again inside the project area, there is a vast void space that is located between the Schönbrunn complex and the Park behind the Wiental river. The solution was to treat this area as a transition from the castle toward the park, where events and facilities will be located. To reach this goal we implemented the Fragmentation that came out from the analysis. The area was covered with a grid where a program was overlaid. It would have function by implementing functional and spacial perceptions, amplifying the events and feelings according to the program.
Space would be fragmented permanently and temporarily. The permanent fragmentation would be the creation of platforms, big as much as the events that are planned to be located to happen there. Beside that is the temporarily intervention which will be achieved by using some modules.

MODULE’s Characteristics
The modules will be the temporal boxes that will change shape according to the program. They will be flexible (easy to merge with one-another), economic, dynamic (movable inside the area), multiple choices (functions, configurations), sustainable (recyclable materials).
The different modules configurations will create different perceptions. As it is seen in the diagram first the modules are grouped together, creating compositions from 1 to 3 couples together. After the first accompany they will gather with other groups such a way creating compositions of space (cross cut, gatherings, transit paths, linear continuity, inner plazas and final destinations). These space compositions are related directly with the perceptions mirrored by the Viennese plazas.

Project Proposal
To make the plan of the project, first of all was chosen a program, Museum Quartier Perception. There is quite evident the relationship between platforms and modules. These platforms do cross the river as bridges, and mostly lay over the river by making possible the exposing of the river toward the people. By being in a site of the World Heritage we chose to intervene on the river only visually, by projecting in the walls videos and images about Vienna. In the sections are seen as well some other interventions, having to do with the mobility, where we put below ground the motorway that now is crossing in front of Schönbrunn, and also the underground location of the new parking lot. Beside that are visible the platforms and the bridge that is hosting programs. The existing park still stands behind the river, but now connected through this “program” bridge.
The temporal solutions bring a diversity of space configurations, every time responding to different events and needs of the inhabitants and tourists. Beside that it gives the possibility of actually keeping the area untouched by permanent and harsh interventions and preserving the World Heritage objects by visual intrusions.

Spontaneous Architecture_ june 11

METALLIC LEFTOVERS AS A SOLUTION!

Maybe begun as an immediate solution, the “alternative gates” of Old Himara can be numbered among the long list of spontaneous architecture. The actors that brought to this solution can be grouped in two categories: Resolute factors and Ephemeral factors.

The element used as a garden gate is recycled metallic leftovers of garbage cans.

As resolution factors are: poverty (which brought to cheep, functional, quick and intelligent solution) and security (which brought to the need of having garden gates)

A transit factors from resolution to ephemeral is: Color (a personal solution mimetised with the surrounding)

As ephemeral factors: Time and Weather (those brings variations and different perceptions of this fragments of “architecture” which transmits various feelings)

The second image is a collage of Spontaneous Architecture found in fragments of organic, natural, livable and artificial formations.

1. 

2. 

MiPP Museum_ mars 11

 
 

the Temporary City_ mars 11

_ Mind Map

_Communication as a city frame

_ Add ONs

 

Project Thesis_ the Temporary City

1st Phase:

I would like to start with a quotation chosen by Dan Brown’s novel “The DaVinci Code”: People see what they know, not what there actually is, so try to see beyond the painting…

Even if this quotation may sound far away from architecture, it is how I understood mapping. Mapping is a process that describes the city from another perspective of observing it, where your mind and senses are opened toward nature and city… you leave yourself be infected by every physical and mental “catalysts”, values of the piece of land that you are about to study, “map”.

The conditions were to choose one fact and two fictions, through which the city will be observed and visualized.

 1^st as “Fact” I chose what I call, the “ADD ONs” (extensions in existing buildings, ambulant sellers, demolished memorials, balconies covered with plastic bags, new buildings, ect). These interventions were grabbing space, enclosing it, creating 3D “alleys”, labyrinths, such a way channeling fluxes and wind. Dealing with these Add On-s, which I also divided in 3 categories: successful; functional and resolutionary; was also dealing with the relationship between formal and informal.

2^nd, the first “Fiction”, picked up is “wind” (as a factor of space structured by add on-s) strictly related with accumulation of fluxes.

A notation in the area was that narrow streets, usurped by the “add on-s”, were transformed in natural shortcuts channeling wind (its intensity grows higher) and in contrast were somehow “hostile” toward people (not accumulating fluxes).

Naming the first “fiction” could be dealing with “ephemeral” state of the city!

3^rd, the second “Fiction”, picked up is “communication as a city frame”. While walking inside the area, the feeling was like getting “attacked” by information, advertisements, posters ect. It was like a direct communication from person to person, but transforming on pier in a “printed layer”. This feeling was caused because while getting overloaded with this information, my mind started to think directly for the process to be taken after brain develops the information, ending on thinking (buy; deal; learn; invest; gain; enjoy; solve; live; drink; think; dance; work out; watch ect).

The conclusion was that Communication worked as a filtering layer between people and “add on-s”. A transition frame of thinking inside the city!

Finally I ended up with a mind map, where all the 3 characteristics were connected together, and a 3D Map showing The TEMPORARY CITY.  

To mention: in the 3D Map is showed only one walking trail inside the area through filling in “the empty space”.

 3D Map Legend:

Planes (white, grey, red) = add on-s (successful, functional, resolutionary); density of wires = accumulation of fluxes; high of wires = intensity of wind; vertical images = communication frames.

2nd Phase:

_ Project Poster

  

The location of the project is in the “Bllok” Area, a highly dense part of the city, where housing, business and entertainment are merged together. Businessmen have eager investing on this city area for their entertainment businesses, though the habitants of the zone are more and more bothered by the noise of night life. So how to make this extremes work together? The solution could be “ephemeral architecture”…

Here we connect the first phase with the second one. The proposal could be, an Add On, which works as a city frame, and for that utilizes the wind.

How the whole system works: Wind is caught by pinwheels that pop out of the roof of the “add on”; its intensity is transformed into an electrical impulse, which is translated into color in the cover façade of the ephemeral Add On. The coverage is made by plastic balloon and stands up to a metallic structure.

This proposal is located in this case over the Lana River, even if it could have been on other parts of area, as popping out of an existing building, filling in an empty space, or standing in the middle of the plazas.

the motto of this project is: Nothing Permanent, Yet Effective!

In the upper writing you can understand why the project is called City of Temporality, in other words “a city of an instant moment of time”.