An Open School: the core of Stefano Boeri Architetti’s vision lies in the idea that the school of the future can become an epicentre in the urban life of neighbourhoods, a place open to everyone, of all ages, every day of the year. This is the concept that has guided the realisation of the 3 new schools designed in Tirana following an international competition promoted by the Municipality of the Albanian capital, for the realisation of the 20 new schools envisaged in the Tirana 2030 Masterplan.
National
Albania
Municipality of Tirana
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Stefano Boeri Architetti Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Stefano Last name of representative: Boeri Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Founding Partner Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via G. Donizetti 4, Milan IT Town: Milan Postal code: 20122 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 0255014101 E-mail:comunicazione@stefanoboeriarchitetti.net Website:https://stefanoboeriarchitetti.net/
The three school facilities – the first of which was inaugurated in December 2021 – in the neighbourhoods of Don Bosko, Kodër-Kamëz, and Shqiponja, located in the north-western quadrant of the city and designed to accommodate pupils in educational cycles that incorporate kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school, were created.
Specifically, the Don Bosko facility includes a middle school, a high school (High school “Kristo Frasheri”), pre-school education spaces (Primary school “Vaçe Zela”) and a nursery, covering an area of 9,812 square metres. Architecturally, the project is characterised by a tower that serves as the landmark of the entire project, a secular bell tower that emphasises the public dimension and the presence of a new common space for citizens. The Kodër-Kamëz building proposes an offer of educational services similar to the Don Bosko facility, characterised by the “John F. Kennedy” high school and the “Nene Tereza” primary school, which extend over a total area of 11,898 square metres; while the Shqiponja facility (“Andrea Stefani” school), smaller in size with an area of 7,898 square metres, includes schools for pre-school education, a middle school and a kindergarten.
community
inclusivity
multifunction
flexibility
open spaces
The project for the Three New Schools in Tirana sees the implementation of clean energy production systems, both from a construction point of view, thanks to architectural choices, and from a technological point of view.
In addition, for example, to the materials chosen – that guarantee substantial cost savings – and efficient, state-of-the-art plant engineering, in fact, the interior spaces, thanks to the study of orientation and maximum exposure to the sun, guarantee natural energy savings.
In terms of construction, the buildings are characterised by a simple and functional layout, with red stoneware façades contrasting with a totally white base: a combination of materials and colours that recalls the tradition of Italian architecture in Tirana. In designing the interiors, great attention has been paid to colour – which promotes comprehension and social interaction – and natural lighting, in order to create an environment as comfortable as possible for the students.
For the purely didactic spaces, a system of classrooms with great flexibility has been conceived, which can be transformed over time and become places for both traditional lessons and workshops. In a way, designing flexible classrooms means aspiring to a different way of thinking about schooling.
The new schools in Tirana also accommodate canteens, multifunctional halls, libraries and sports facilities, accessible to both the students and the community at different times, and located on the ground floor and around the perimeter of the building in order to ensure access from both the building’s interior and exterior areas. The result is a network of permeable urban spaces on the ground floors, in full dialogue with the surrounding squares, streets and parks. A true complex urban device, the school is designed as a local epicentre is thus expressed through the activation of a new neighbourhood centrality, active as a point of reference for public life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
One of the goals of the project is indeed to establish osmosis with the local environment, through the exchange of knowledge and experience, with an important reverberation on neighbourhood life. The three new schools in Tirana are thought to become both epicentres of social life and spaces of intergenerational connection. Therefore, the volumes were conceived starting from the open spaces, which were given the same relevance and importance as the interiors.
Like the neighbourhood squares, the new schools are designed to be occupied by students during teaching hours and by local communities during extra-curricular hours, weekends and holidays. The buildings and their open spaces therefore can also become recreational and meeting places as well as potential places for shelter in emergencies.
Unlike traditional schools in which the relationship with the city is separated by a perimeter wall, the new schools in Tirana are designed to create permeable urban spaces on ground floors. Together with the functions offered to the community they will also make the squares, streets and parks that surround them both active and attractive.
The movements of people and the main entrances have therefore been designed to ensure maximum flexibility of use. In particular, facilities and functions such as canteens, libraries and sports facilities that can be used at different times both by students and by the community, are positioned on the ground floor and around the perimeter of the building, in order to guarantee access both from the building’s internal spaces and from outside areas.
While being open and permeable, the proposed school structure model offers a necessary degree of safety and protection. By following a planimetrically defined architectural structure the school is divided into an urban residential block inside which all the functions are housed. The idea is that of a “school as a square”, inside the block, which is based on a structured system with open spaces.
After winning the international competition promoted by the Tirana Municipal Council in 2018, Stefano Boeri Architetti worked on the design for three of the new schools envisaged by the master plan. The work on the Tirana 2030 General Local Plan started in 2016, with strong support from the former mayor (and now prime minister) Edi Rama and his successor Erion Veliaj. The project has been delivered and the Municipality is in charge of the implementation of the overall vision through administrative and design projects. The plan saw the construction of 17 new big schools as not only a response to the need to educate and train an increasing number of young and very young people, but also the opportunity to rejuvenate the suburbs of Tirana around a new concept of state schools open to local communities.
In actual fact the Albanian capital has found itself having to come to terms with considerable demographic growth which over the last twenty years, has led to the urban fabric becoming saturated and thereby increasingly fragmented, with no equilibrium between built and open spaces and above all with minimal provision of services for the inhabitants.
The Open School represents a new way of thinking about education and the role of the institution in the city. For this reason, the project has given the possibility to unite the architectural theme with the educational one: the choices made for the schools in Tirana have fulfilled both the task of creating a pivotal place for the city, and of delivering spaces for education that are as usable as possible.
In order to design the latter, in fact, it was necessary to meet local educational needs, implementing the innovative idea of a different didactics: according to the University of Salford Manchester 2015 "Clever Classrooms" research, for example, the development of a child is influenced by 4 factors (personal behaviour, family, school and the classroom). Studies have shown how the design and distribution of spaces affects students' school expectations. So, although the methods of understanding are constantly evolving, it is also necessary for the architecture of kindergartens and schools to follow and, why not, anticipate changes. Therefore, it became necessary to design new structures, in order to facilitate the development of innovative strategies for teaching and understanding, given that they will be increasingly characterized by an extremely wide use of technological and interactive materials.
If before it might have seemed little more than a splendid utopia, today the theme of open schools has become a real necessity in order to respond to the demand for well-being expressed by residents all around the world. On the educational level, an open school means osmosis with the territory, an exchange of knowledge and experiences with an important impact on the life of the neighbourhood. The three new schools in Tirana, even if constructed at minimal expense, have been designed to become real epicentres of social life and spaces for intergenerational and social connection. This new open schools project will be able to give Tirana a preview of that vision of an 'archipelago city', a metropolis consisting of neighbourhoods which are self-sufficient in providing services to their inhabitants, something which is today being pursued by many other international capitals.
The new Tirana schools, therefore, represent an innovative project both from the point of view of architectural inclusion – unlike traditional schools the ground floors are permeable, connecting to the city – and, above all, from the educational point of view, proposing new standards for the school of the future.
While the formal aspects relate to dialogue with the context of intervention, the philosophy behind the Open School is exportable to any context, placing connection with the city, inclusion and active teaching at the heat of the project. The Open School is a part - and a fundamental part - of the public city, and as such, it must create, together with all the spaces usable by the community, flexible spaces capable of immediately relating to the physical space of the city and its citizens, starting with the networking of the 'urban voids' with the aim of giving value to the aspects of aggregation, community, and socialisation. Schools, together with the network of greenery, new pedestrian routes, new infrastructure, will be pivotal points in shaping not oly Tirana's future, but the future of the contemporary cities.
During the design process, great attention was paid to calibrating the balance between the presence of traditional spaces dedicated to teaching required by the ministry and therefore in compliance with local regulations, with hybrid areas more suited to experimental educational systems and innovative teaching activities. The volumes were conceived starting from the open spaces, which were given the same relevance and importance dedicated to the interiors. With the aim to create an accessible building, which dialogues with the surrounding urban context, through an accurate study and control of all the access ways in order to guarantee safety, the spaces that host public functions, such as the library, gyms, multifunctional rooms, the dining hall, can be opened to the city and used by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood during non-school hour.
The significant demographic increase of the Albanian capital over the past 15 years has led to the intensification of a phenomenon of densification and saturation of urban space; which provides the opportunity, with these schools, to imagine a new way of living in the city. Their construction is of significant importance for the Albanian capital, as it contributes to reducing the lack of existing school facilities and makes it possible to accommodate the almost 1,400 students in the area by overcoming double shifts, a fundamental problem of the Albanian education system.
At the same time, it was an opportunity to formalize the idea of the Open School, a school as an epicentre in the urban life of neighbourhoods, a place open to everyone, of all ages, every day of the year, both answering to the local educational needs and the global challenges of education and urban planning.
The schools are located in the north-western quadrant of the city, a perfect place to recreate a bond between citizens, the soil and society: starting from a traditional context, in which the relationship with the city is mostly constituted by a wall or a fence, the new Tirana schools are thought as a new urban plot with permeable ground floors whose functions make the surrounding squares, streets and gardens active and attractive. The aim of the intervention is to represent, therefore, a step forward from a housing and social point of view: on the one hand by becoming an integral part of the life of the city, and on the other hand by proposing a progressive education, which is based on inclusiveness, exchange of knowledge and participation.
The reception by the citizens has been very positive, the idea of a school that is also a meeting place and allows for exchange and community activities has been experienced well and is succeeding in strengthening those processes of community relations that tend to be diluted in some areas of contemporary cities.
The competences developed within the project are composed of two levels: the multidisciplinarity that characterises the interventions, which, combined with the exchange with the city and its surroundings, aims to generate new skills and knowledge; and the education for sustainability and community participation, helping to integrate both the human and social spheres, as well as the environmental sphere.
This new open schools project will be able to give Tirana a preview of that vision of an 'archipelago city', a metropolis consisting of neighbourhoods which are self-sufficient in providing services to their inhabitants, something which is today being pursued by many other international capitals.
A symbol of a new way of thinking about education and city development; a new way of thinking, in essence, about the future.
