18 research outputs found
Healing homelessness and informality by re(pre)fabricating social and sustainable housing
No full textDuring Socialism, an interesting cheap and fast technology was implemented to build high-density housing units in Albania, called the “Parafabrikate-t”, which were no less than five-storey high buildings made with precast concrete panels. Prefabricated systems have been used recently in a variety of projects proving to be time, cost and energy saving solu-tions, too. Learning from the (Albanian) past and analyzing the recent examples worldwide where this technology has been implemented, should not be underestimated by the central government and local administrations, as long as budget limitations and lack of public land prevent them from satisfying the high demand for social housing. Although might seem un-related, an interaction between the recently approved Social Housing Strategy 2016-2025, law Nr.116/2016 for the energetic efficiency, and the ongoing legalization process of informal buildings in the national territory, is more than possible to obtain land for building energeti-cally efficient social housing units for everyone
Towards (nearly Zero Energy Buildings) nZEB educational buildings. Two scenarios to solve the energy performance, indoor environmental quality and capacity of the existing school buildings.
No full textSchool buildings are fundamental to transmit civic values and importance of a better environment to future generations. Besides the low consume of energy and exploit of renewable resources, an energy-efficient school also provides a good Indoor Environmental quality (IEQ), very important for the students and teachers. Quite often, the refurbishment of the existing school buildings is approached exclusively in an energy-efficiency perspective. Unlike new buildings, where energy-efficiency goals are much easier to meet through a wider range of solutions leading toward low consumes of energy (sometimes near to zero), in the case of existing ones the morphology and technology of the building represent important obstacles. Since 2010, in the European Union EU (regardless their destination), the refurbished buildings were required to produce their own energy demand from renewable sources. Defined as “nearly Zero Energy Buildings” (nZEB) and introduced for the first time in the EPBD 2010 recast, by producing their own energy demand without generating harmful emissions it was possible to reduce the dependence from the grid, known for transmitting power generated from non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Albania, a potential candidate to become a member of the EU, has transposed two important directives the EPBD 2010 recast and EED 2012 in its legislation but still not operative. Because of the missing acts regulating the technical aspects of building envelope elements, heating/cooling plants, exploit of renewable resources and in particular the certification of the energetic consume achieved through various labels, that (new or refurbished) buildings obtain. Refurbishment interventions on existing school buildings, performed by public administrations to reduce energy consumption and improve the indoor comfort are the clear example of this unclear energy efficiency framework. Most of the public school buildings of the nine-year cycle were built during the socialist system (known as Shkolla Tip ). Usually, they have been subject to refurbishment interventions without a clear goal, even though their building technology does not allow a wide range of interventions. Poor energetic-performance apart, capacity is also a serious problem. The low number of classrooms constrain the split of the didactic activity in two rounds (morning and afternoon), posing an important dilemma between the necessity to refurbish versus the possibility to demolish and build new ones. The nine-year cycle “Hillary Clinton” school, in the Kamza municipality, has been chosen as case because of the necessity to refurbish and increase the capacity. By proposing a set of technological solutions, there will be proved the convenience deriving from the refurbishment and the increase of capacity of the existing school buildings against their demolition and building of a new energy-efficient school with the desired capacity. Furthermore, considering our climatic context and the “sustainability” of our national grid system, the decarbonization of the school building stock in the country may occur sooner than the expected EU goal for 2050. For this reason, the refurbishment proposals will consider two possible scenarios: (i) the refurbishment by preserving the capacity; and (ii) the refurbishment with increase of capacity
Tirana’s new boulevard hidden potentials. Reactivation of the dismissed factories for a sustainable development of the nearby informal areas
No full textThe new boulevard is an ambitious goal which is expected to generate important outcomes in terms of urban development and regeneration of the nearby informal areas. This intervention consists in the prolongation of the existing boulevard toward an area, in part empty and in part occupied by informal buildings that blossomed after the fall of the Socialist regime in the begging of the 90s. Besides attracting private investors in the construction of the various facilities expected in the masterplan, it should also encourage the gradual urban transformation of the nearby informal areas, commonly known for their high unemployment rates and social marginalization. The public-private partnership (PPP), as model of development, is a good initiative that the public administration wants to promote, even though convincing private investors is difficult and very risky at the same time. To lower the economic risk of this consistent investment and the possible low attraction of private investors, the public administration should pursue an alternative solution that takes into a consideration the local inhabitant, the local potentials and the dismissed factories, to guarantee a sustainable and long-term development and in the same time decrease the economic efforts necessary to the construction of the new boulevard, too
Una finestra su Durrazo. Obiettivo: Integrare. Intervista a Besnik Aliaj
No full textL'intervista ad uno dei più noti urbanisti albanesi sul tema dell' Informalità e delle azioni da intraprendere nel futuro allo scopo di intergrare i quartieri informali con il tessuto urbano delle città
Three decades of (un)planned territorial development. The evergreeen question of social housing in Albania
No full textNo abstract availabl
Sustainable Prefabrication for the social housing shortage in Albania
No full textAfter the end of WWII, housing shortage in the East European countries was solved with the implementation of the (precast concrete) large-panel building technology that revealed very efficient in terms of costs and time of construction compared with traditional building solutions. Despite being implemented in a restricted scale, in Albania this experience has been largely considered unsuccessful because of the poor building quality and lack of indoor achieved. Nowadays prefabrication technology has evolved in a variety of building systems such as cross-laminated timber panels (CLT), also well-known for their high energetical performance. The growing demand for social housing, cannot be reduced as a matter of budget and public land available, as long as there is not any alternative building system that can be time and cost saving, too. The Social Housing Strategy 2016-2025 and the National law for the energetic efficiency Nr. 116/2016, highlight the willingness to develop good housing but further actions are needed to facilitate the supply
(Un)margin the Shkodra’s gate / An opportunity to regenerate an important landmark
No full textThe Shkodra’s gate is located in the southernmost point of the city, where there is the confluence of Buna, Kiri and Drini Rivers. This gate is not a simple access to the most import city of the North, but the Albania’s main gate, towards northern and central Europe. The countless postcards produced through the years, mark its importance by figuring the two main symbols of this landmark: the Rozafa’s castle, positioned in a very strategic point at the top and the Buna’s river that springs from Shkodra’s Lake. During the 19th century, its strategical position and the navigability of the Buna’s river, encouraged the creation of city’s harbor, tied Shkodra economically with many European harbor cities of the Adriatic basin such as Venice, that lately encouraged the concentration of many small artisanal enterprises and birth of the local market, too.
During Socialism, the centralized economic model implemented in the country banned private activities because of being in contrast with the ideology of the regime and it couldn’t be different in Shkodra where the harbor, the local market and the surrounding buildings were blown away, erasing an important piece of history. Nowadays, this area isn’t in a good condition because of the constant flood risk and the abandoned building that were expected to host economic activities are a clear demonstration of the lack of attention and investments from the public administration and the central government. The so called “bypass”, supposed to act as dike to prevent floods, is no less than a huge amount of gravel placed in the limit of the city.
Despite suffering this quasi-miserable condition, a regeneration is vital to rebirth the lost identity and to assure protection from floods. The project proposal doesn’t consist in the (re) building of a new harbor, as an attempt to restore the lost memory, but as part of a series of interventions to protect the city from the lake’s and Buna’s river behavior during their peaks also aiming to preserve and improve further the relation between them and the city
Drivers of internationalization of territorial development. The case of Albania
No full textMechanisms and trajectories triggered by globalization have largely influenced territorial development across the globe. Countries have tried to address territorial development with alternative fortunes due to the interlinked international and domestic economic, political, and social contingencies. In terms of sustainable land use, there have been enormous differences between the developed and under-developed
countries. To overcome these territorial management imbalances, international actors have activated a number of initiatives aiming for a more coherent territorial development across the globe. Relevant actors
like the United Nations Agencies, international development agencies, and the European Union EU have launched numerous territorial agendas aiming the assessment of the necessary actions to achieve a major
balanced use of the territory. This paper explores the path of the drivers of a progressive internationalization of spatial planning practices. Its focus will be on Albania, which has recently introduced the reform of its national spatial development system, aiming at addressing its territorial challenges
Contrast Between Energy Efficiency Policy and Renovation Interventions in Existing School Buildings in Albania. Difficulties of Turning School Buildings into nZEB
No full textAbstract not availabl
Three decades of (un)planed territorial development. The evergreen question of social housing in Albania
No full textFall of the Berlin Wall triggered the begging of a long transition for the Western Balkan’s Countries implying significant social, economic and political transformations. Since the early 90’s, the boom of (every kind of) informality, has been silently accepted by every government in Albania. Furthermore, the prevailing of private initiatives, more precisely the laissez-afire, with the consequent “vanish” of public interest awareness, redefined informality as a hegemonic economic principle. Spatial planning in Albania has been perceived as a mere technical tool by technocrats to control the territory, but completely powerless to contrast informal settlements developed in outskirts of the urban centers. This phenomenon, resulting from the high internal migration developed regional disparities and inequalities, highlighting the lack of opportunities and living conditions in the rural centers. Actually, these settlements are undergoing into a gradual legalization process, representing a clear political intent to recognize and afterward start their urban integration which is threatened from the private market transformation once the legalization process is over. As long as the private (legally and illegally built) housing market has prevailed toward social housing, the recent global crisis recalled to the public opinion the importance of this common good. From this perspective, the recent changes regarding spatial planning as an integrated approach: the adoption of Social Housing Strategy 2016-2025; introduction of the law for the energy efficiency and the ongoing legalization process, represent a historical momentum to re-establish the focus on (sustainable) social housing
