08 Jun What might an unplanned city look like?
On a recent trip to Albania, The Assembly Line Founder Diane Cunningham considered what type of city Tirana the capital is and how its future might shape up.
Perhaps a bit like Tirana in Albania?
There are a few historic buildings, with tall buildings sat between them, ultra modern apartment blocks (no ground floor vacancies in them) and communist era office blocks and petrol stations side-by-side with new build that could be in London.
What’s different is that it seems little is demolished. The new additions exist side-by-side.
In an era where masterplanning is almost the norm, it’s fascinating to wander around a city which hasn’t had that approach to date.
There seems to be a building boom underway with lots of resi (and hotels and offices) being built and aspirational hoardings around them.
The building that stands out as being the exception and having had a lot of thought going into it is the “Tirana Moons”, an open air library that looks like a treehouse (at ground level) in Mother Teresa Square.
From a quick search online it seems there is a 2030 masterplan in existence but it’s not been possible to find out much about its progress.
Tirana is an interesting, compact city but it could be much better and its going to be interesting how it changes through these boom years and what future shape it takes.
