“Self-driving Uber Car Kills Pedestrian in Arizona, Where Robots Roam,” reads a New York Times article of March 19th, 2018, one day after the accident. This is just an example among many others of the entanglement of science with life in the contemporary city. In the last thirty years, The IT Revolution has dramatically changed the urban landscape. The information has become an essential component of a new way of designing and thinking about a new urban environment. A whole generation of architects is introducing and transferring the digital world to a new reality of reactive, sensitive, interactive architectures. 

The aim of Tirana Architecture Week 2020 is to draw current research and design practices, as well as theoretical speculations on the relationship between the paradigm shifts in science and urbanism; in other words, about the science and the city. Such mandate will be addressed in multiple scales and contexts, and from different perspectives within different fields of interest, directly or indirectly related to design, architecture, urban studies, sociology, environmental research, engineering, education, and pedagogy. This paradigm shift, led by science in its different forms, has deeply influenced our notion of the city and created a field of rich possibilities to define either the positive or negative impact of this new realm of influence.

PARTICIPANTS

Future Architecture Fellows:

Matilde Igual (Institute for Linear Research)

Renzo Sgolacchia (Learning from films)

Fabio Ciaravella (Architecture of Shame)

Eduardo Corales (MOB Projects)

Sonja Lakic (Apartment Biographies)

Miguel Braceli (Biblioteca abierta)

Brad Downey (Manifesto for unexpected architectures)

Keynotes

Alessandro Melis (UK - Portsmouth) - 28 September

Matias Del Campo (US - SPAN Architects) - 30 September

Farshid Moussavi (Farshid Moussavi Architecture) - 02 October

Antonino Saggio (IT - Sapienza) - 5 October

Makoto Sei Watanabe - 9 October

Philippe Rahm (Philippe Rahm Architects) - 10 October

Exhibitions

7 Questions for the Future of Architecture | Supported by FA Platform - Opening 30 September, POLIS University MAD Gallery

Architecture in Salzburg | Supported by the Austrian Embassy in Tirana - Opening 08 October, POLIS University Hall

Book Presentation  (with the authors)

ALBANIA: Decades of Architecture in Political Context - 03 October

International  Scientific WebConference

[SCIENCE AND THE CITY] Inviting Speculative and Critical Inquiries on the Com-position of Techno-science, Architecture and the City - 2-3 October