FAED
Dr. Antonino Di Raimo Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Engineering & Design “Architecture as the discipline devoted to transform the reality” is our main philosophy at the Faculty of Architecture, Engineering and Design at POLIS University. Teaching Architecture and Design within a specific reality like that of Albania can only be understood if one is able to think about “the crises as opportunities” in order to raise challenges of design activities and identify potential views rather than the solution. This work therefore, rather than being a catalogue, is a complete documentation of the whole Diploma Thesis in Architecture and Design, developed by several students generations graduated at POLIS since its foundation, under the auspices of a meaningful contribution to the territorial, urban, architectural and design dimensions of Albania. Having this document available, will serve as the basis to draft and guide the Faculty’s priorities over the next years and make better decision about POLIS’s vision in urban design, architecture and applied design trying to match the specific Albanian context with the broader Mediterranean and European region development. A closer look at the presented works reveals some crucial criteria that have been adopted and fully characterize POLIS University’s approach. At this point it can be regarded as a guide for the reader to go through the abundance of approaches and topics been developed by graduates as their final assignment/ task. The first thing that might impress the reader is the intense diversity of the topics. As in many other similar institutions focused on architecture, here in POLIS we believe in the necessity to face with urban realities and the demand for transformation, by involving different attitudes and points of views, even when they are contradictory. All kinds of attitudes and opinions are similarly valid since the debate on the transformation of urban reality implies all levels of governance and a great number of actors who might have different and sometimes even opposite opinions and approaches. It is only through challenging this reality that we can reach the so-called architecture or design position. Making students aware about such crucial need is what comes out from the works developed in the Diploma Studio. In any case our ambition is more about “testing the space” and the availability to work within several paradigms than assuming a specific ideological position. The complexity of the Albanian | 8
reality and the richness of diverse positions represent the contribution of POLIS to public debate as a way to shape the destiny of the urban and landscape transformation. Neither a guardian of the purest tradition nor an uncritical supporter of the “new architecture trends” but a an open laboratory determined to discuss, investigate and come up with proposals, that not only involve architecture as a discipline but see it as a dynamic part of the whole development , preserving its frame value and its disciplinary core. The presented works have some common traits, which can be seen as emerging POLIS methodology shaped during last years, when POLIS is gradually establishing a unique profile in education within the region. These traits basically consider architecture and design as links with a broader reality encompassing urban and landscape matter. As such, the extreme diversity in the presented works, regarding topics and quality, is based on some basic concepts which can be useful to be recalled in the pursuit of the reader’s understanding:
- urban densification versus urban sprawl Most of the works stay on the belief of the necessity to rebuild the city, as the disappearing of its main core , the so called forma urbis has gradually become its predominant character. The re-design of Tirana is not a matter of setting a new make-up as in many marketing oriented urban practices. It attempts to deal with the understanding of the urban settlement and its historical character with the idea that a high quality urban level can be reached only by revitalizing and refining the existing. In this regard, we present a discrete number of topics in which, the borders of the new city (as a way to delimitate them and to prevent unnecessary expansions) and the new potential cores belonging to that so called informal city have been both investigated. - revitalization of the infrastructure and their dialectic role with the urban morphology Other emerging issues relate the extremely problematic conditions that affect the current outdated infrastructure, especially the one related to the rail transport. Although this topic would eventually affect the regional scale, some theses have considered its re-integration and the urban and architecture implications by proposing a re-visiting of the railway station typology through involv-
ing contemporary approaches in the way this urban nodes could create new polarities within the city through a re- definition of the surrounding public spaces system. The infrastructure then, becomes a new factor able to create a new urban order rather than crossing through the existing textile.
- program of activities versus typology However, the large collection of diverse topics, ranging from housing to institutions design, points out another feature of POLIS methodology , which is the preliminary exploration of the possible set of activities to be implemented within the physical project. This crucial step is regarded with a strong attention within the process, because our belief is that a good architect should be able to interpret non-material phenomenon that affects contemporary cities and be able to drive them through architecture techniques: framing the activities, containing and even mixing them in accordance with local economies and ecologies development trends. - living nature versus generic green Because of their common root, the ecology and economy are strongly related with one another. In our way of thinking, the role of the nature in the process of urban and landscape transformation is more substantial and has more implications than what is commonly known as “green”. Therefore especially in the newest diplomas thesis a revealing tendency is the pro-active use of the whole nature. Here at POLIS the ecology is deeply involved with architecture and urban teaching, and is regarded as science of relations, rather than a mere adjunction to architecture discourse. - autonomy and revaluation of the proper value of architecture language
Architecture language, that still appears to be a concrete matter of interest within the entire Balkans, in our diploma laboratory is regarded as a matter which concerns the individual student’s freedom. This balance existing between the two extremes of conservative attitudes and architecture as a fashion, allowed us to make students deeply involved with their project by getting an extremely diversified array of works, which makes us optimistic about the contribution that these young generations, will give to the Albanian development in the near future. Additionally, further interesting works,
are those conceived within an experimental framework, which found its reasons within the idea of addressing computer technologies in architecture, urban and landscape issues, as well. Also in this case, rather than following uncritically what is done abroad, we maintained the role of technology at the service of architecture, which results in works that in Albanian context can be regarded as pioneering projects. POLIS is determined to follow this attempt in the next year. Meanwhile, POLIS has started to work on restoration techniques at thesis level, an architecture discipline ignored in Albania for quite a long period.
On a similar line, also regarding the Art and Design Bachelor Thesis and in the Applied Design Master as well, the reader will find a discrete collection of cases characterized by several approaches as they have been developed from our Diploma Studio called The Albania everyday life. Within this studio run at Bachelor and Master level, students work within several branches of Contemporary Design, reaching in some cases even the level of complex prototyping, as it happened in some Masters thesis. It is again a pioneering effort in education, since the absence of design as specific discipline, for many years. Many of the proposed works started with a meaningful intention: far from being purely formal oriented the social impact of the design proposal was seriously taken into consideration. This collection will reveal POLIS’s contribution to higher education in the country with special focus on cultural renovation of Architecture and Design. We believe that our task is not limited on training professionals. Our goal is to contribute in the preparation of the young generation of local thinkers. Lastly, POLIS remains committed to address the necessity of opening the architecture discourse to public interest without any prejudice and/or preformed ideology. While contemporary Environmentalism and Information and Communication Technology are continuously emerging as contributions able to rethink the discipline of our Faculty, we still think Architecture and Design as the disciplines able to make a synthesis between art and science, and as such among the most crucial human activities. For this reason POLIS stays committed to a synthetic approach in the sense of the historical meaning of the word within architecture and design disciplines.