Making of a Garden

The Government building in Tirana - a late 1930s rationalist structure from the Italian fascist era was born with a single balcony. The later Albanian stalinist addition made it even more enclosed, introverted. Today, nature enters the void once left between these two blocks of history. At its heart rises a vertical garden with paths, platforms, and rooms suspended in light. A living core for breathing, meeting, celebrating, and exchanging between people and nations.

Like a true garden, this “non-building” cannot be understood at a glance. It unfolds through movement and through time. A slow journey from water to sky. It begins at ground level, where fish drift beneath the surface, and each step upward transforms the senses. The light softens, the air changes, perspectives widen. Along the way, small alcoves invite rest, a coffee machine welcomes pause, and intimate rooms host guests. Higher still, an open stage emerges for gatherings in nature . Wind, sound, and scent become part of the architecture. You feel the grain of wood, hear the rustle of leaves, watch the seasons write their passage. And at the top, the city unfolds in full - Tirana, seen with a bird’s eye from a garden that breathes like a living organism above its own history.

Unlike a conventional building, where mass and insulation define space, the structure uses air and plants as its primary filling material. The building is made of a fine timber grid, constructed from 48x48 cm profiled larch elements, rising up to 18 meters high. Instead of walls, it holds walkways, platforms, and hanging gardens. Instead of insulation, it breathes. The system is open, porous, and vertical, allowing wind, light, and rain to pass through. All materials were chosen to evolve over time. The larch weathers, softens, turns silver. The plants grow dense and wild. The architecture slowly disappears into its own landscape. It’s a house reimagined. Not to shelter from nature, but to host it.