Angaben zur Professur

Lehrstuhl 

Professur H. Klumpner

Typ 

Professur für Architektur und Städtebau

Standort 

ONA

Webseite 

www.klumpner.arch.ethz.ch

Assistierende 

Diogo Figueiredo, Melika Konjičanin, Alejandro Jaramillo Quintero, Dr. Michael Walczak

Kontakt E-Mail 

figueiredo@arch.ethz.ch

Angaben zur Entwurfsklasse

Typ 

Entwurf V-IX

Thema 

MediTirana, Designing Circular Cities

Beschreibung
des Entwurfs-programmes 

What is the image of one of Europe’s fastest growing cities? How can we design for the benefit of the local population? Where can we build public spaces and programs for inclusion? Students will design urban scenarios, developing them into architectural prototypes for the program of a public market while promoting equality, improving infrastructure access, and offering alternative opportunities for locals and migrants. Tirana, Albania, the 2025 Mediterranean capital, is experiencing rapid urban growth and a controversial migration deal with Italy. As one of Europe’s fastest growing cities, Tirana is transforming into a dynamic urban lab, showcasing developer-driven growth in the center, contrasting with the rising number of informal settlements on the periphery. This market project seeks to overcome the communist heritage and leverage opportunities for the development of coastlines and the protection of pristine bio-agricultural soils along natural river flows. In the Studio we will search for design solutions that reflect the Mediterranean lifestyle and reconnect Tirana with the waterfront of the Mediterranean Sea, its rivers and lakes, as unique resources. Keywords: Water bodies, Water Retention, Water edge, Heat Islands, Migration, Borders, Order, Human Rights, Agriculture, Markets, Mobility, Inclusion, Diversity In 2025, Tirana, Albania, is selected as the Capital City of the Mediterranean. What sets Tirana apart from cities like Athens, Barcelona, Casablanca, Istanbul, or Tel Aviv? Tirana is undergoing a radical transformation, emerging as one of the top three fastest-growing European cities, driven in part by a controversial agreement to accommodate up to 100,000 migrants for asylum processing. Today, Tirana is a dynamic urbanization laboratory, experiencing developer-driven growth in the center and a surge in unplanned settlements on the periphery. As an integral component, students will develop projects exploring how public market architecture and circular urban design qualities can stop the drift, leading to greater equality and infrastructure access. As Tirana experiences significant growth and transformation, the maintenance of its natural resources—such as soil, water, and air—becomes increasingly crucial. Abundance does not equate to unlimited use; over-exploitation of these resources could undermine the city's long-term resilience and prosperity. Therefore, sustainable management practices must be prioritized to ensure these resources continue to support both current and future generations. With this in mind, students will develop a prototype project to capture the universal experience and atmosphere of a public market and common spaces with open transaction programs that reconnect the city with the waterfront. This project seeks to reflect the Southern lifestyle, overcome the communist heritage, and capitalize on opportunities. Developing these markets leverages undeveloped coastlines and water edges, pristine bio-agricultural soils, natural unobstructed river flows, and a blend of natural and artificial lakes and even retention basins. Tirana stands as an unprecedented resource and a laboratory for site-specific architecture and circular urban models. The city offers an unparalleled testing ground for developing sub-centers and market areas, interconnected by infrastructure, to provide structure and perspective to urban development. This initiative, marking a significant departure from the city's communist past, is closely linked to the waterfront of Tirana's sea, rivers, and lakes, offering a solid image and program for the future. We have identified the design and construction of sub-centers, both through new developments and the enhancement of existing areas, as a strategic program to offer integrated spaces that combine markets and public services. These sub-centers, interconnected by comprehensive infrastructure—including transportation, digital networks, and access to essential services such as education and healthcare—are envisioned to provide a new organizational structure and perspective for the people of Tirana. This approach not only aims to foster a renewed sense of identity and community, but also prepares the city to accommodate future migrants and tourists by creating common spaces that enhance the city’s sustainable circular development.

Thematische und methodische Schwerpunkte 

Entwurf, Staedtebau, Landschaftsarchitektur, Handwerk, Visualisierungen

Lernziele 

While cities contribute to the highest CO2 footprints, they also hold the potential to most effectively bend the carbon curve and take Climate Action in achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Moving towards decarbonized ways of living and `Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe and resilient (SDG 11) will require behavioral and systems change in all sectors of life. Access to quality education (SDG 4), co-creating evolving frameworks for life-long learning, building capacity for transformative processes, strengthening and building new circular economies, making use of digital and analog tools, as well as how easy it is to access services in the city, are the foundation to design and maintain sustainable urban futures. In alignment with these principles, the central thesis of this Design Studio focuses on the conceptualization and design of innovative architectural and urban prototypes, precisely market spaces. These designs aim to address and respond to the complex challenges posed by migration, tourism, urban densification, the circular economy, social sustainability, and the re-naturalization of urban landscapes. Through this approach, the Design Studio seeks to create solutions that meet immediate needs while contributing to the long-term resilience and vitality of urban environments. Students are introduced to tools and immersed in our Chair’s “method-design” to develop their prototypical design projects by: 1.) Base-Line: We design in a continuum of architectural, urban, and planning scales to collaboratively develop a basis for how the city is now. 2.) Mapping: By identifying existing and future challenges and opportunities, we take the role of stakeholders and visualize our demands and resources into three different scenarios. 3.) Concept Design: We develop an urbanistic synthesis and translate a concept into an evidence-based prototypical architectural project- intervention. 4.) Prototype Design: We present the synthesis of our process in time and space on different scales. We frame the design projects as a narrative, consequentially developed and communicated in analog and digital graphic representations. 5.) Upscaling: We test our project concepts and upscale prototypes through design-policy recommendations to make them transferable in Tirana and other cities. The design studio focuses on the transformative redevelopment of the city on three scales: A_ General Urban Plan (GUP) Scale: 1:10.000 / Tirana as a whole territory Mobility systems, energy, urban expansion, water protection, geothermic, ecology B_Regulatory Plan (RP) Scale: 1:1000 C_Architectural Prototype (AP) Scale: 1:500, 1:200 / Project site The driver for change in the Western Balkans is architecture. We see this happening in cities like Tirana, Priština, Sarajevo and Belgrade. Architecture is at the forefront of making transformations visible in preparation for EU membership. The next generation of designers is providing places of development, safety, and quality of life, which are essential for city governments. Architecture and Urban Design are translating these opportunities, entrepreneurship, and technologies into these cities. Changing the landscape and regenerating open neighborhoods is full of opportunities, architectural and natural beauty. Tirana is a place of architecture, resistance, social engagement, innovation, inclusive cultural and religious diversity, and being an urban laboratory. Education is the foundation for creating sustainable development models, like the emerging Market as a cultural medium, which are the Studio’s grounds for imagining new relationships between the undeveloped waterfronts and unspoiled bio-agricultural soils with rich natural river flows. From our Urban Stories lecture series, we have developed an urban toolbox that translates urban knowledge of internationally recognized development examples into strategic tools. We reference permanent and temporary strategies such as the destruction and re-construction of Berlin, Informal settlement upgrading in Capetown, Chengyecheon River Park, Seoul, Isarpark, Schlachthof / Munich, Corredores Verdes / Medellin or Cali, communal target-plan Zurich, closed highways in Sao Paulo or Bogota, etc. These spatial processes follow a widely known practice of consolidating a sequence of transformations and short-term strategies for long-term value production. Urban- and Landscape Design can create a measurable impact in cities by increasing social justice, health, and wellbeing. The development of robust frameworks adaptable to change enable processes for regeneration with long-term operational, environmental and social benefits in response to global, local, and site-specific challenges. The role of architects is to imagine and model sustainable urban scenarios recognizing new possibilities, to create multidimensional transformative design strategies with long-term benefits for people and cities. Method-design We systematically engage students in the semester research topic, to unlock their potential and skills towards developing prototypical design resolution on an urban and architectural scale. Identifying, understanding and developing local stakeholder networks, so as to translate challenges into opportunities and negotiate diverse interests into strategic ideas for development, geo-references, inter-linked systems, diagrams and maps.We develop design concepts for urban prototypes on different scales, framed by a narrative of a process that is consequentially visualized and communicated in analog as well as digital tools. - Investigative Analysis/ Local Perspective: We register the existing; prioritizing challenges and opportunities through qualitative and quantitative information; mapping on different design scales and periods of time; configuring stakeholder groups; connecting top-down and bottom-up initiatives; idea mapping and concept mapping; designing of citizen scenarios. - Project Design: Synthesizing between different scenarios and the definition of a thesis and program between beneficiaries and stakeholders; we project process presentation as a narrative embedded in multiple steps; describing an urban and architectural typology and prototypes; defining an urban paradigm. - Domain Shift: We shift and translate different domains; testing and evaluating the design in feedback loops; and include projects into the Urban Toolbox.

LV-Nr. des Entwurfs 

052-1139-24

Zusätzliche integrierte Disziplin(en) 

063-0562-24L, 063-0762-24L

Unterrichts-sprache 

English, German

Arbeitsweise 

Individual and group work, thereof 3 to 4 weeks group work

Daten Zwischenkritiken 

05/11/2024

Datum Schlusskritik 

17/12/2024

Einführungs-veranstaltung 

17/09/2024; 9:30; ONA Studio, E25

Zusätzliche Kosten 

CHF 150 (Schätzung, ohne allfällige Kosten für Modellbau und Seminarwoche)

Verfügbare Plätze 

36

Plakat des Entwurfs-programmes 

Plakat ansehen (PDF Datei)

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