Durana
Durana is a complex metropolitan reality. It will need an attentive and articulated masterplan. In order to start this planning process we propose to identify a first series of relatively simple and relatively inexpensive interventions that could operate as an activator for the entire process.
In order to understand and transform Durana, we propose to focus and to operate by means of a single element, that we will use as a key to activate a transformation of the entire territory. By reducing our toolbox, we imagine to expand the consequences of our work.
Our proposal is simple and precise.
We propose to use the Tirana-Durrës highway as the key to de-code and re-code the Durana metropolitan region. The highway is indeed not
only the main metropolitan element of this ter- ritory, but also the main instrument of its recent urban development. The highway, as public in- frastructure, is also the easiest element to work with for a public subject such as the Ministry of Urban Development and Tourism. The high- way ends up being the most effective and at the same time the easiest tool to work with in the context of Durana. We propose to maximize the possibility for success in the short period and to take the easiest way. Further interventions in the Durana area will follow the initial steps developed by acting on the highway. In particular, the interventions on the highway need to be compatible with the development of a metro tram/train serving the Durana region, an initiative that we consider crucial for the metropolitan region in the medium period.
The highway is OK. It makes sense as it is, it should not become a “proper” highway, neither should it become an entirely urban road (that would require another highway). The complex layering of different rhythms coexisting into the highway is just a consequence of the different speeds and multiple populations inhabiting the city. We need to understand this multiplicity of speeds as an asset. We propose not to destroy the promising hybrid nature of the highway, we imagine to protect its challenging ambiguity by simply giving form to it. We propose to provide better definition to the highway by recognizing the figures that manifest their presence along it. In fact, the highway operates as a stage of a possible metropolitan theatre. We simply need to attribute definition to the characters acting on this stage, to expose the rituals that enliven the metropolitan theatre.
