Shqiponja Square Building
Special Recognition in Architectural design
Shqiponja Square Building proposes a vertical urban oasis for Tirana and explores an urgent question for growing cities: how can high residential density create public space rather than consume it? The project organizes three residential towers above an active base of retail, offices, and public landscape, concentrating the built area vertically to free an interior collective space. The proposal transforms density into an urban tool. Its curved base allows people to cross, enter, observe, and use the project, rather than simply access private housing. The ground level opens to continuous pedestrian paths, green areas, playgrounds, retail spaces, and places for gathering. The layout acknowledges the presence of an existing school, creating a gentler transition between housing, public facilities, neighborhood, and city through visual and pedestrian connections. The towers begin with a diamond-shaped floor plan that evolves into an octagonal geometry, regulating visual relationships and reinforcing privacy. Their facade works as a habitable filter: an excavated mineral mass where varied openings generate depth, shadow, light, and a sensitive relationship between housing, city, and landscape. The project proposes a simple urban lesson: density should not be evaluated only by how much it builds, but by how much common ground it can return to the city.
Participant category: Small company (< 10 employees)
Company name: Pepe Gascón Arquitectura & SAAS ARCHITECTURE
Country: Spain
Location: Tirana / Albania
Team: Pepe Gascón Arquitectura is a multidisciplinary studio founded in Barcelona in 2003. It develops architecture, interiors, and public space through a contextual, precise, and timeless approach, grounded in light, materiality, and spatial clarity.
Edition: 2026
Project status: Concept
Website: https://www.pgarquitectura.es/ https://www.saas-architect.com