The workshop “#Tirana100 Rebound: Repairing and preparing Tirana for a resilient future” was held from January 23, 2021 to February 3, 2021. Despite the exceptional circumstances, the workshop was held on site, with the precious and continuous support from the Municipality of Tirana, the French Development Agency and the French Embassy in Albania. Significant adaptations to sanitary conditions made this feat possible, while preserving the methodology of Les Ateliers.

14 local participants and from around the world (Albania, France, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland, Palestine, North Macedonia ...) took part in these ten days of visit and intense work in the political and economic capital of Albania .

Reparing and preparing

Tirana is a complex and rapidly changing city, whose rational structure inherited from the authoritarian regime of Hoxha has been transformed by 30 years of informal developments: since the 1990s, the city has tended to develop before services and development. do follow.

Today endowed with an ambitious local plan which projects Tirana as a polycentric city and which emphasizes the environment, the capital is experiencing even faster metamorphoses following the earthquake and the need for relocation. By focusing in particular on the east of the city and the Kinostudio district, the workshop pursued a dual approach.

Repairing the urban fabric and providing services after years of informal construction, integrating recent migration and natural disasters.

Preparing to anticipate the expected growth in population, density, and economic activity.

The workshop thus aimed to propose ideas that can be easily implemented, which take into account the long perspectives necessary for this city under pressure.

After visits under the winter storms of Tirana, from the city center to the rural areas promised to rapid development, and meetings with civil society associations, academics and private developers, the three teams worked and proposed in the jury framework for the first time hybrid (both on site, respecting health restrictions, and online) actions that the Municipality of Tirana can immediately take up.

Actionable ideas

The teams proposed to act quickly in the public space, to pacify and green it, and to build up a network of places and soft mobility little by little, also using the industrial heritage. Highlighting the links between the east of the city and the nearby mountain is also an action to promote the inclusion of this area in the large territory. All these actions allow Kinostudio to project itself in the post-covid city, a city of proximity, teleworking, a green city, in connection with its local know-how and its agriculture.

We invite you to explore these proposals more deeply by reading the Session Book available on the workshop page.

Work also continues in Tirana through the Tirana Urban Youth Competition, which encourages students and young professionals to come up with ideas to open up heritage elements to residents and visitors in the center of the capital: this initiative was launched by the French Embassy in Albania, Polis University, Les Ateliers de Cergy and other local and international players: the competition is open!