PARK AVENUE II

In collaboration with Orion Construction, Tirana

River Residences is the gateway to a new neighborhood in Tirana that accommodates about 400 dwellings totaling about 35,000 square meters of construction. Part of a larger project, it fits into the preplanned lot in a precise manner, offering the elongated trapezoidal-shaped floor plan to underscore the importance of its positioning as an articulation between the countryside and the city’s road structures and the new neighborhood. It is an 11-story open court building to receive the sun, and through its generous openings, to provide natural ventilation for the large green courtyard.
It is a difficult project to describe without falling into expressions of enthusiasm because its image blends the fantastic pleasure of offering new families a fabulous castle where everyone lives one of its towers and the idea that the whole building is like a large tree housing warm nests. Its precise geometric structure, which gives it a strong and decisive presence, is the result of careful planning, designed for the comfort of the inhabitants. Despite its size, it is a building that was designed from the inside out, from the intimate space of the family to the urban space of the extended family. The air of a manor house, it presents a clear reference to kinetic art. It stands proudly and is curiously perceived as a familiar and welcoming presence because its articulate and elegant forms instill a great sense of lightness and joy. The play of light and shadows decorate a volume full of surprises that is designed to continually surprise us and change expression with each movement that allows us to shift our point of view. It is a white building but at the same time full of color. The expression of the rigor of the openings cooperates in giving a sense of tranquility and balance to the richness of its forms that seem to dance in the city. The large arcade, of the first two floors with public functions, offers inviting transparencies to the dynamic public life of the neighborhood

The different treatment of the first two floors not only emphasizes the public character of the building’s base, which binds it to the city by making it permeable, but also lightens its perception by making it unexpectedly light and floating along the river. The genius loci materializes precisely in this element of detachment and at the same time link between the built and the naturalness of the water element of the canal in front (Lana). The cleanliness of the advertising signs integrated into the façade architecture allows for a reduction of disturbance and to offer a graphic elegance to the façade, with a mature communication to the public.
The large, elegant, curvatures of the volume, without interrupting the signifying pattern of the facade (balconies), give an important urban appearance to the entire neighborhood. The challenge, met, in designing this, for us, jewel, is to insert a richly meaningful and reasoned piece into the urban texture of Tirana, making it a proud and civilized head of a backward urban sprawl that seeks to express the highest possible quality. The treatment of the interior courtyard with vertical “stems,” echoes the iconic elements of the exterior facades, but reacts in proportion and perception differently. The emphasis of verticals, generated by the design serving internal comfort, is accentuated by minimal architectural devices, which transform the facade into music of light and shadow, in a completely unexpected configuration, and the result of collaboration between practice and concepts, but always in the service of beauty.
River 2 offers forms that awaken mnemonic images of a great civilization, without being apeed but rather interpreted anew, in favor of people’s feelings. Architecture can and should positively influence moods through its direct communication with the senses. Every line we draw can and should have a reason that we can share in building our living space. Together with Orion we share this pleasure and love to extrapolate the absolute best for the lives of future inhabitants and the future of Tirana.