CIVIC LAND CENTER
The team composed by BAUKUH, SAM CHERMAYEFF OFFICE, STUDIO MUOTO, ARKIMADE, SIMON BOUDVIN, ATMOS LAB, YELLOWOFFICE, BOLLINGER+GROHMANN, won the Property Institutuions Cluster+ Mixed-use development competition in Tirana. Here below an abstract of the winning proposal for the Civic Land Center.
The organization of the new complex is extremely clear. All components of the Property Institutions Cluster are brought together under one roof. By building all new program around the existing building, we will maximize the amount of public space and of permeable soils at the ground floor (the total built surface increases by only 1115 sqm, leaving half of the area unbuilt); by concentrating all program in one big block we will reduce energy costs by virtue of the sheer thermal inertia of the compact built mass.
By wrapping the new program around, the existing building disappears and re-emerges in the city as a bigger, more sustainable, and more elegant version of itself. All the different activities are close to each other: movements and connections becomes easier, archiving facilities are grouped together and become more flexible and efficient. To the East of the existing building there is a new volume with office spaces, to the West, there are the archive and other offices. The logic of the expansion is simple: the dark functions remain at the center and offices are built around, where light conditions are optimal.
The initial building is used for services, meeting rooms, installations. Its post and beam structure is particularly suited to support a wide range of activities and open configurations. This regular structure is extended to all new buildings. The archive
(with its specific structural requirements and its strict functional logic) is in a new volume, directly adjacent to the old building. Offices are all around, with generous windows open onto the city. They form a transparent layer beneficiating from generous daylight and defining the two long façades open to East and West.
The new building emerges in the city as a monumental block of ca. 70 x 50m, covered by a large and iconic barrel vault, reaching 54 m at its maximum height. As in the case of the renaissance basiliche (the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, the Loggia in Brescia and the Basilica in Vicenza), the new building combines some pragmatic lower levels and a generous civic hall at the top. This space is not conditioned, but simply protected by the different shading layers of the vault and it is open to a wide range of possible public uses, from concerts, to balls, to parties, to political rallies. The roof covers a hybrid, public terrace that can work at different levels of intensity, from a place where employees can work informally or relax to a place for truly metropolitan events. Its grand proportions provide a sense of joyful luxury and playfulness (as the legendary terrace of the second version of the Madison Square Garden). The public terrace is a gift to the city, a place of extreme metropolitan generosity where everything happens and where the multitude can temporarily feel the intensity of Tirana urban life.
