While checking on the web of  IVANIŠIN. KABASHI. ARHITEKTI we found this great project proposal of a housing complex in Hajvalia (a neighborhood on the outskirts of Prishtina), an investment of KOHA Group. This complex design which was initiated on 2006, has a gross surface area of 9.500 m2 and a site area of 14.000 m2.

The following text by Krunov Ivanšin/IKA:

The development is on the north-eastern outskirts of Prishtina; it lies at the edge of the key direction of the programmed and natural development of the city. In transitional conditions of radical social/ spatial/ development relations, the location at the edge of the city is usually seen as advantage. This is certainly so in this particular case, primarily due to the vicinity of recreation areas: urban forest and lake. The environment consists of infrastructural buildings and corridors, smaller industrial facilities and a typical granulated housing structure of family homes and modest- size residential buildings. They are ordered according to the formative and contrary to the programmatic proportions in the landscape ensemble. Relationship of the solid and the void; built and unbuilt; ”urban” and ”natural” is quickly changing in favor of the solid/ built/ ”urban” in a process with numerous unknown variables. Transitional urban planning and transitional construction take place simultaneously. In such a complex situation, the project does not develop according to unambiguously defined urban rules, but anticipates them within very general parameters of density and height. It is at the same time an architectural project and a programmatic survey.

The unbuilt surface is surrounded by roads sloping towards the south-eastern view to the distant mountain. Access from the city centre is from the northern side. Proposed programme is structured in five transversal ribbons positioned parallel to the terrain trajectories, from one end of the lot to the other. Ribbons consist of towers of up to five and rows two floors high. Parking space is situated in the underground. To fulfill the accessibility demand which is crucial at the outskirts, natural slope was used and cars excluded from the ground floor. Programme formation is articulated horizontally and vertically by side- stepping of the towers from the longitudinal axes of ribbons and- again- following natural slope. In the ground- floor, side- stepping of the towers is sequenced by meandering public with expanding and contracting views. Sequence of squares, covered passages, stairs, ramps, parks and sport facilities owes its spatial richness to the properties of the relief formation and landscape features of the project. In accordance with the programme, these public spaces are enhanced by added contents in the ground levels: kindergarten, shops, bars and sports club. Apart from contributing to the versatility of public spaces, landscape- like architectural modulation and meandering volumes enable horizontal and vertical structuring of various lifestyles: from two- level flats with gardens where life resembles on in the family house, to large apartments with roof gardens and wide horizontal views in the highest enlarged floors of the towers. A small hotel or a cluster of apartments for rent is located in southern tower with reception area close to the restaurant and the sports club.

Thus the programme versatility characteristic of the central parts of the city is enabled on a micro-scale of the settlement in the periphery. Moreover, the foreseen public programme covers the needs of the area broader than the settlement itself. As a programme attractor it will enable a positive identification of residents with their settlements. This is a project of integrated urban life on a programmed and structured island in the periphery in attempt to neutralize the usual drawbacks of living at the edge, at the same time using its advantages in organization of sustainable dwelling in an emerging environment.

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