Bostjan Vuga together with Jurij Sadar is the co-founder of SADAR + VUGA, one of the most prominent practices from the eastern Europe. Participating in many projects in Kosova, such as the redevelopment proposal Arberia Park and being awarded the second prize winner to the Prishtina Central Mosque international competition, Bostjan Vuga came back giving a lecture during the Prishtina Architecture Week 2013.
Building up a new product which people would love and would respond positively to it, is the main issue of bringing a belief to the local architecture! The Kosovars’ attitude towards architecture and particularly interior design is changing more than ever, especially now since Hamam Jazz Lounge has been awarded as the most prestigious bar design in the world.
Aaron Levy is the founding Executive Director of Slought Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia that engages the public in dialogue about cultural and socio-political change. As part of Prishtina Architecture Week 2013, Aaron Levy gave an inspiring presentation exploring the relationship between architecture and its publics.
During the awards ceremony at the Saatchi Gallery London, on 28 November 2013, World Interiors News Annual Awards 2013 have announced the 2013 winners of the bars category, awarding London/Prishtina based firm 4M Group for their design excellence on Hamam Jazz Lounge.
Watch Bujar Nrecaj of BNArchitects giving a lecture during Prishtina Architecture Week 2013, talking about his own architectural studio and the ideas he is applying since his return to Kosovo. This 60 minutes video lecture tours viewers through his intention of creating a meaningful, powerful and simple architecture, along with his effort of recreating and reinterpreting the urban built environment.
Above is the video lecture of Asa Bruno, the directing architect at Ron Arad Architects which highlights their unique philosophy that challenges the relationship between form and function. The video is part of Prishtina Architecture Week 2013, organized from the 1’st to the 6’th of July unfolding theories from around the world with its lectures and events.
Kosovan architect Arbnor Murati director of the “swiss-kosovan” based practice MORKOTE, on his lecture during Prishtina Architecture Week 2013 gave an insight into their past and current works of his practice. Sharing his design challenges and the success story on winning the prestigious international competition of the Campusuniversity USI/SUPSI, Lugano.
Another project commended by the young architects at Maden Group, reflecting the idea of creating a high standard residential and recreational building with a green character, providing thus qualitative and innovative values to the urban life.
As a whole, the building is 2B+P+12 and includes 21,820 square meters, shaped through sustainable development and modern projecting, and divided into two separate units: that of living and that of common spaces. Architects’ description and more images after the break.
Prishtina based architecture studio LSN Architects newest task, the Arting LLC – Lakrishte Complex, is a new commercial and residential highrise building project in the major area of the city’s downtown. Sited in Lakrishte district, this project is a continuation of the zone’s heavy development of multistory buildings, nearby to the Kosova’s tallest under-construction projects the ENK Complex and WTC Complex.
We’ll keep you updated with more images and information as the project continues.
Rethink Space foundation recently announced their upcoming lecture and workshop of Snøhetta Studio, an award-winning international architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design firm based in Oslo Norway, which will be giving a lecture to the audience of Prishtina, at the Modelarium of FCEA Dept. of Architecture, during September 18th – 19th.
Further lecture information and the posters after the break.
Earlier this year, we publicized the Europan 12 Kosova Competetion taking site in Gjilan with the theme “The Adaptable City”, tempting young architects on improving the cultural life in the city and provide new facilities for municipal administration, and changing the image of the center with new civic buildings and public spaces.
EUROPAN KOSOVA invites you into emerging architect’s universe, on the EUROPAN KOSOVA 12 exhibit, which will be on display at the City Gallery (Theater Building) in Gjilan on the 6th of September, presenting and analyzing innovattive design strategies of Gjilan’s city center, provided by more than 35 international and national participants.
by Attila Beksac
Prishtina seems too hasty these days. The city, which is the youngest capital of both Balkans and Europe has lots of problems to solve while ‘turbo-urbanism’ has taken effect in whole its distritcs .
It can be said, this experience that Prishtina has been tasting since the end of Kosovo War is familiar and has taken its roots from the ex-memories of territory’s rich historical cities. ‘Identity crisis’ seems obviously the most suitable topic to call this developments.
Last week during Prishtina Architecture Week, Urban Plus held an open studio session welcoming students and freelancers of the profession to their working environments, to see what’s been happening by looking around the studios and talking to each of the staff personally about their work. Check for more photos after the break.
Most of us might of noticed the cartoon-colored sidewalk concrete protectors on the narrow street by the Swiss Diamond Hotel, or the colored sidewalk across from the Prishtina`s newly built Cathedral, and wondered whether this street art was vandalism or legal art pieces. Fortunately, these art pieces were the winners of an EU-funded project called Culture for All. Managed by the European Union Office in Kosovo and implemented by ARS PROGETTI SpA (Italy) in July 2012, this competition called young artists and artists’ groups from all over Kosovo to participate in a visual arts prize competition for street art, mural paintings, applied arts, photography and/or installations in urban space. On September of 2012 the jury declared the winner artists, among which was Senat Haliti, an architect from the old city of Prizren who authored the “EU Pavilion”.
After a numerous events in Prishtina Archtitecture Week which included many interesting lectures, screenings and exhibitions, this year’s edition of Prishtina Architecture Week ended with different exhibitions and an architectural tour in Prishtina. This time, the open studio was held in Përparim Rama’s 4M office in Prishtina.
The fifth day of Prishtina Architecture Week, started as usual with the workshops underway, trailed up with the exhibitions held at the Modelarium of FCEA Department of Architecture and at Kosovo’s Academy of Science and Arts. Continuing to the open studio of one of the biggest architectural practices in Prishtina – ANARCH.
Yesterday, July 4th, the Architects Association of Kosova held an emergency meeting at the amphitheater of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning of Kosova. This meeting was called in Prishtina upon the disapointment that a large number of architects, engineers and planners had on the 2011-2014 leadership of this association. According to them, besides the fact that this association has collected membership money each and every year, there hasnt been one single activity organized by them since late 2011, not even membership confirmations via emial or mail (association’s website confirms these allegations).
On its fourth day, the Prishtina Architecture week stayed true to the planned schedule, starting with workshops, exhibits, open studios, and closing the day with lectures and screenings.
The Prishtina based architecture company ArchiEdu presented Graphisoft ArchiCad 17 to the audience, showing the program’s new platform and advanced features which make it a more reliable tool for architects to use.
The third day of Prishtina Architecture Week followed with a rich programme including exhibitions and lectures. Today’s event started off with workshops in the morning, following through different exhibitions and a presentation by Kosovo Architecture Association.
The inaugural of Prishtina Architecture Week took place this afternoon to a capacity crowd at Modelarium – FCAE Department of Architecture. Ila Beka & Louise Lemoine engaged in with “Koolhaas Houselife” – a documentary from the Living Architecture Series, following after by an inspiring conversation touching on cinematographic architecture. Part of today’s event as well was the “swiss-kosovan” based practice MORKOTE, chaired by Arbnor Murati which gave an insight into their past and current workings of his practice.
Staring from July 1st through the 6th, the city of Prishtina is hosting the “Prishtina Architecture Week”, the first of its kind in Kosova in an effort of exchanging experiences, methodologies, architectural and urban experiments and theories form around the world.
Located close to the new roundabout that is being built in the direction of the road exiting Prishtina towards Skopje, the RIERA complex is the latest project by Lesna Construction to join a busy under construction area of capital of Kosovo.
Here’s another proposal from the many entries of the Central Mosque of Prishtina International Competiton, by Portuguese practice OODA studio in collaboration with AND-re. This proposal illustrates the glowing strength of the Islamic religious architecture embraced in architecture and the instant significance to the current state of architectural philosophy in Kosovo. Project description from the architects, after the break…
The proposal submitted by Dafina Muriqi, Shpat Pozhegu and Besmir Hasi is one of the total two submissions for the “Campus Design Competition of the University of Gjakova”. Although the competition was cancelled in absence of more than three participants, the proposal of these young architects deserves to be part of our website architectural proposals. More details about the project, after the break…
Our friends from Albanian architecture studio MetroPOLIS, just published their proposal in collaboration with makeLAB (us) and 3Ti_LAB (ita) for the Central Mosque of Prishtina International Competition. This proposal, has succeeded in creating a modern form within the volumes of the mosque. Other images of the entire complex and architects’ description, after the break…
In an article originally published on bustler.net, APTUM Architecture has shared their design proposal to the Central Mosque of Prishtina. This proposal titled MI’RAJ, offers both a change of scale and of atmosphere as compared to the surrounding architecture. More on the author’s description, read after the break.
Why not take advantage of local architects, as they seem to have engaged themselves to design great buildings. Being no inferior to the foreign colleges, Pacarizi and Sadiku pointed the strengths of local architecture. See below the description and other details of their Central Mosque of Prishtina International Competition proposal.
EUROPAN is a call for projects of ideas at the urban and architectural scale, addressed to young architects under 40 years of age, which look for innovative housing solutions in different urban sites in European towns.
Following a successful first-time organization of the Europan 11 competition, Europan Kosova is participating also this year’s Europan 12 competition, among the 15 other participating countries on the theme The Adaptable City with the project site in Gjilan. For further information on the competition and participating details, read after the break.
The winners of the international design competition for the Central Mosque of Prishtina were recently announced by the organizer, the Islamic Community of the Republic of Kosova. The competition had invited freelancers from around the world to design a place of worship, a place of multidimensional functions, a landmark of Kosova.
The announced results for the CMPR design competition draws with NO first place winner!
On the competition Peja Bazaar, features as spatial development, functionality and practicability were taken much into consideration. Therefore the second winning proposal by Urban PLUS presented a variety of a combined appearance transferring the plot to the required number of units resulting on mosaic architecture of eight different cubes, providing commonly accessible spaces, with an inner square that would satisfy the needs of the shop owners and meanwhile provide a better access to the riverfront.
Continue after the break for more images and description by the project authors.
The public exhibition for the “Central Mosque Competition” proposals will open to the public between Thursday 27th of March 2013 to 31st of March 2013 in Grand Hotel Prishtina. The exhibition invites the public to vote for their favorite proposal, which holds 15% of the total voting.
On the recent publication from the Department of Urbanism and Environmental Protection of the Municipality of Peja on the winners of the competition Peja City Center, Maden Creative Studio held the third place. This studio`s design approach named Locus, or the center of activities or power, not only merges the architecture with the overwhelming natural beauties the city of Peja hosts, but also redefines this part of the city as the center of all future activities. Below you may find the studio`s design description and exclusive presentation renderings.
The proposal submitted by PRIMA Engineering in collaboration with REBUS from Tirana for revisioning the Peja City, was among the the four finalists entries of the Peja Bazaar Competition. The aim of this competition proposal was to create a new type of the Traditional Albanian Bazaar’s, with a more sustainable approach.
The video animation, more images and authors description after the break.
AlbaniaNOW is an international exhibition organized by makeLAB in cooperation with Lawrence Tech and Polis University, challenging all Albanian architects, artists, designers of all Albanian regions to provide projects that represent the best of Albanian art and design, for the exhibition work which will be hosted in Detroit, US on the fall of 2013.
More information on the exhibition after the break.
A city of 96,000, home of the White Drin River and the picturesque Rugova Canyon, Peja is undergoing vast urban developments. Recently, the Department of Urbanism and Environmental Protection of the Municipality of Peja held a competition on revisioning the center of the city, as per the Urban Regulatory Plan “Centre, Kapeshnica and Karagaqi”.
Pictures and video images of one of the competitors of the “Peja center competition”, published by X-Plan Studio on their Facebook page.
The Republic of Kosovo will soon be initiating investor consultations for exclusive development rights to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Brezovica Mountain Resort in the Sharr Mountain National Park in Shtërpcë/Strpce municipality of southern Kosovo.
According to some international sources, the Kosovan company MABETEX Group is set to build the new stadium of one of the most prestigious football clubs in the world, F.C. Internazionale Milano!
The Venice Biennale for over a century has been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Ever since its foundation in 1895, it has been in the avant-garde, promoting new artistic trends and organizing international events in contemporary arts.