The project, designed by SelgasCano and FRPO, maintains a radial plan geometry. The ground floor comprises a Mediterranean garden with abundant vegetation, above which an oval podium sits on the ground, and finally, two slender, chimney-like towers rise, each with a series of terraces accessed through circular openings of varying sizes.
Structurally, the oval podium rests on six concrete columns, and each tower boasts a distinct and visible color, accentuated by an undulating concrete texture that emphasizes its verticality.
Sky-K by SelgasCano + FRPO. Rendering by Playtime.
Project description by SelgasCano y FRPO
This building is located in the Mediterranean city of Durrës a mainly residential city and the coastal city closest to Tirana, the capital. Sky-K, as we decided to call the building in honor of Kejsi, our great client and friend, its placed on a hided lot immediately behind Rruga Taulantia, a street recently transformed into a sea linear park and recreational space within an urban context rich in industrial heritage from the port area.
The residential tower was conceived with a focus on minimizing its footprint in situating it very carefully on the lot and later controlling its scale and mass, trying to not to disturb views and light from the surrounding buildings. The floor plan geometry is a result of that, first liberating the entire ground floor, so that this level is a Mediterranean garden, with a lot of vegetation designed to enrich the local neighbors. Then an oval shaped podium that meets the ground with just 6 strategic concrete columns. And after two slender like chimneys towers, each in a very visible and different color. The chimneys continuous façade, each with the same small plan foot print, is accentuated by an undulating concrete texture that enhances its verticality. It is interrupted by a series of round shaped openings varying in size that in fact are the terraces openings, not having any of them a visible glass on the facade.
These terraces frame the beautiful views of the 360 degrees surrounding landscape, including the Adriatic Sea, the Durrës Port, and the Hill of Durrës. This façade’s articulation provides the building with a big range of apartment sizes and typologies and each unit benefit from at least a couple of terraces that promote effective cross-ventilation. At the end, seeing the final result, where we arrived very slowly, we remained in one hand very surprised with it, but at the same time, and in the other hand, very happy with the client reaction and hopefully with the Durrës inhabitants’ reaction to the close green ground floor belonging to the more locals, and the two skinny and bright colored towers evoking the city’s industrial past and belonging to the whole city view.
