Gapscape Participant's package

table of contents

1. What is EASA?

2. Why EASA Day? 2.a. Easa Day 2011 Tirana Ekspres

3. EASA Days 2012 | Gapscape

4. Workshops and collateral events 4.a. workshops 4.b. collateral events

5. Schedule

6. Participate!

7. Get familiar with the team!

what is EASA?

...Baby don’t hurt me,don’t hurt me,no more...

EASA is the biggest architecture student’s assembly in the world. Even though EASA is an European platform there are also delega-tions from the other continents. Albanian Students have participated regularly in EASA since 2008 and the spirit of EASA has been approached every year by more and more students.

Other events arranged by the EASA network are: INCM, SESAM, and EASA DAY(S). (to be introduced at Tirana Ekspres!!!)

EASA was founded in 1981 by architecture students Geoff Haslam and Richard Murphy and it takes place each summer in a different country, with the event usually lasting two weeks. It is organized by students of architecture for students of architecture and the concept is operated on a cooperative basis.

Every summer in EASA 400 architecture students gather together and discuss, organize workshops, take lectures from local architects and academics, and party wild.

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why EASA day?

At the Intermediate National Contacts Meeting (INCM), held in Octo-ber 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark, it was proposed that a local event should be organized in as many countries as possible, to promote EASA to students who would be interested to be partici-pants.

Originally it was thought to be one single party at the same date and time in all the countries, but it soon evolved to a wider event. Although not all the countries organize an event called EASA day, in most architecture schools exhibitions are held to show what Easa stands for.

We in Tirana, having to deal with a relatively short tradition in EASA (from 2008 on, versus from 1982 on), feel the urge to spread as much as possible the news about EASA and show to our fellow students an example of what it is like to be part of a community of hard-working students engaged in workshops loosely connected to social themes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9npuzxPQQ

EASA day 2011Tirana Ekspres

The first albanian EASA day was organized in December 23rd at Tirana Ekspres.

It was a cold day. Roundly 40 students arrived and most of them contributed with easy-to-recycle materials to make two workshops.

One of them was themed around making spatial installations using 2dimensional wooden frames, while the other was about creating light installations employing cardboard boxes, plastic bags and incandescent lamps.

More than 20 temporary artworks were left as a gift at Tirana Ekspres, hanging at the ceiling or laying around the space. They were photographed by hundreds of people visiting Tirana Ekspres to follow indie music concerts and art exhibitions.

Some of the artworks are still available today if you visit.

Tirana Ekspres is the only contemporary art space in Tirana, making it the most alternative and groundbreaking place in the city. It is situated next to the train station, in the place of an old warehouse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEgX64n3T7g

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...or it didn’t happen!

gapscape

The Gap, gap, mind the gap, in gaps, void, full void, pressurized void, spray void, packed void, outer spaces......gapscape!!!

The name of EASA Days Albania 2012 is Gapscape. We come up with this name while brainstorming about one of the most crucial problems concerning urban design, architecture and society in Albania, empty buildings here and there.

This issue is encountered mostly in the suburban of Tirana. First there are old empty communist buildings, mostly warehouses; second there are empty new buildings and third there are guerilla buildings.

The situation is really chaotic in the suburban, due to the happening of uncontrolled flow of people before the 2000s. Not that now is a controlled flow of people coming from places outside Tirana and hopping to find a job in the metropolis, but still the flow is not in that higher rate that it was before the 2000s.

What we want to do in our festival is, to embrace this theme and somehow in a small degree give it a solution, but mostly to spread the word and evoke awareness in the architecture and urban design community about this real problem that we all as a society need to face.

We are going to explore theoretically the theme of the festival in the workshop “Talk the talk” and then we are going to try to make improvements in a small scale, like in a old communist warehouse, we are going to make it function as a cultural center.

The logo is designed based on the Fibonacci spiral. The two black rectangles are inspired by the two topics and their importance to one another that our theoretical workshop “Talk the Talk” will develop, the white rectangle in the middle is the inside view of the festival’s theme “Gapscape”.

workshops

It has to do with work, but not with shops...

We have developed five workshops that will explore the festival’s theme in three points of views: Theoretically, Practically based on interior design and experimentally.

1. talk the talkTalk the talk is the theoretical workshop. This workshop is designed to work on two platforms: a social-urban one and a urban-design one. Based on statistics we saw that when urban planning is done in Albania, but also in most in developing countries, there is nottaken a sociologist to discuss the case with, even during assignments and lectures in the universities about urban design there is not given much feedback on the social aspect of the cases. On the other hand, we think that the input of sociology and other social sciences is very important, that’s why we are going to develop the theme also in this aspect.

The whole theme will be studied in three cases, one has to do with the comparison of Tirana to other capitals in Europe, the other one has to do with the fact that even if we approached democracy 20 years ago we are still facing the same problems and the third has do with the global crises and how it reacts and will keep reacting to the existing situation. During this workshop, going hand in hand with the debate, there will take place also two mini workshops. One will face the problem of the green getting inside an ex-warehouse and the other one will gather the community of the neighborhood through a flash-mob.

2. take a sitTake a sit is a practical workshop playing a huge role to the interior design of the warehouse. This workshop is divided in two outputs, one will be a cardboard couch and the other one will be a hammock. The cardboard couch will be mostly based on experiments with parametric structures.

The hammock will be a 2 by 2 meters structure, where can be sited up to 3-4 people. This structure can stay both on the insides as on the outsides.

3. the boxThe box is an open structure wood made, which stays on the outside. This structure has inside threads, by the placement of which there will be an experimental study of light. A person may comfort himself in this .

4. iVideoiVideo is a multimedia workshop. The character of this workshop is experimental and, the decision on what the videos will be abou, will be left to the discussion between the tutors and the participants.

5. the sceneThis is a construction workshop. The aim of this workshop is to create a bohemian concert scene as we see this approach fitted for the warehouse, but at the same time ironic to the festival’s theme. The concert scene will integrate oriental with traditional Albanian motifs as well as low cost and mostly recycled object concerning lighting and sound.

collateral eventsIt’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog

In Collateral Events we include a general presentation about the platform of EASA, two short experimental workshops, lectures, happy hours and a final concert.

I. A general presentation about the platform of EASA, what this community represents and how this experience can make a positive improvement in their professional and social life.

II-a. Green Graffiti is a mural made by moss, this technique is eco-friendly and innovative. II-b. Play with Paint is an experiment focused on logos to improve branding skills on the students. At the end of those couple of hours, they all will have a t-shirt designed by them, based on readymade and “instant”-made stencils, which are then colored with acrylic paint.

III. At the end of every day, there will be held lectures by architects and professors of other fields that have an approach to the festival’s theme.

IV. Happy hour will be an everyday event that will last around 2 hours. There will be a different acoustic concert everyday and a coffee break. It will be decided by the tutors and their team if they are going to fully participate in this break or just partially and then enjoy the music from the working station.

V. The concert is a big final party to cherish all the hard days of work and EASA itself.

this break or just partially and then enjoy the music from the working

This will be three day architecture and design festival and every day there will be around of 8 hours of work. We will provide to the partici-pants, tutors and staff only lunch and coffee break. We will also provide all the materials and tools for the workshops and collateral events. We see this event as a good opportunity to get together architecture students who share the team work spirit and are looking forward to another approach to architecture and much more. This will be an event singular in his kind, promoting workshops and where everything will be done from students to students.

schedule/program

22december

21december

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lunch

workshop workshop

workshop

lecture lecture

final party

final presentation

workshop workshop

workshop

presentationof EASA andgapscape

workshop

workshop

happy hour happy hourcollat. wshop

happy hourcollat. wshoplecture

lunch lunch

flashmob

participate!Surely, sincerely, what we couldn’t wait to ask you!

To Attend EASA days 2012 - Gapscape you need to fill up the appli-cation form found on our facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/easashqiperi

or in

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsan3osvfzd7vf7/Formular%20aplikimi.docx

All the fields in the app form are required.NO application will be considered if the essay is not written.

The application must be completely filled in English!The essay is important to us to let us somehow know you better by your opinion, arguments and explanation on our theme. We stress that the length is not important, but what matters is the concept.

A participation fee of total 500 lek is required to attend the three days of EASA day. This includes the participation at the workshops for the three days as well as lunch This does not include drinks during recreation times.

You must send your application form by email at

[email protected] december!

know the team :)Andrea NaçiIs an architecture student currently enrolled at Polis University. He is really keen on organic architecture and design, but on the other hand also on science fiction books and tries to find a “golden medium” between both of them. Andi is passionate about dance and is currently taking lessons and experimenting in these dance fields: bachata, meringue and salsa.

Aulon Harizaj Is a civil engineering student currently enrolled at Fakulteti i Inxhinierise se Ndertimit with a hobby for bicycles, organic food and music festivals. He has been an organizer to different festivals in Albania and was also a helper at the well know “Flow festival” in Helsinki. Aulon is also an active member of Critical Mass Albania.

Fiona MinoIs an architecture student currently enrolled at Bologna University. She is also the current National Contact for Albania. Fiona is interested in landscape and experiments with lighting in architecture. With a lot of passions in her hands, she tries to put her amateur studying of different social sciences and things that come by, to improve her approach on architecture. She is addicted to TT (tea&travel)

Jora Kasapi Is a young architect with a passion for restora-tion. She also attended the Cultural Heritage Without Borders restoration workshop in Gjirokastra this September. Jora deeply likes green-sustainable architec-ture; the independent approach on art and architecture and bicycles. Jora is the former National Contact for Albania and also an active member of Critical Mass Albania.

Klaudio Ruçi Is an architecture student currently enrolled at Polis University. Klaudio used to be an attempting professional piano player, who then focused his love for music into his rock band. At the other hand Klaudio is a passionate of skate and snow board. Klaudio has lived best part of his live in Athens, before moving to Tirana for studying purposes.

Klejdi EskiIs 25 years old and has achieved masters in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Tirana. Currently he is working as a video-editor at Anima Pictures. Klejdi was for 5 years the Albanian National contact. He likes to travel around the world, meet new people, to create animated movies, to draw, to play the guitar as an amateur, to go at Radiohead’s concerts and to buy Pink Floyd vinyls!

Kujtime (Mimi) Barushi Is studying masters in architecture at Epoka University. During her university years she has always been active in the field of design, work-ing part time for various studio; now she is the designer of the ngo “Active”. On the other hand Mimi is passionate about restoration, last year she participated in the conference “The best in Heritage” in Dubrovnik. During her free time Mimi enjoys swimming, field trips and watching operas.

Ledja AllajbejIs an architecture student currently enrolled at Fakulteti i Inxhinierise se Ndertimit. She is passionate about oriental architecture, from which she mostly takes inspiration in develop-ing organic forms into her projects. She is a member of the volunteer community “Vullne-tar e Vegjel”. She also attended “the conserva-tion summer school 2012” a one week project of cultural heritage without bourders this sep-tember.

Stavri Burda Is an architecture student currently enrolled at Fakulteti i Inxhinierise se Ndertimit. Stavri has practice skiing since his early childhood, he has also competed abroad. Stavri wants to develop an architecture based and inspired on the theories of Alvar Aalto. He feels the need to give a positive impute in his hometown Korca as an architect, he’s graduation thesis is also based on the reconstruction of the History Museum of the city.

Vullkan Qerimi Is an architecture student currently enrolled at Polis University. He used to work as a graphic designer in Prishtina, before moving to Tirana. He is a fanatic of parametric architecture and design, typography and photography. He likes psy-electronic music, and different sequences and elements of audio-ambient approaches

Xheni Alushi Used to study engineering before realizing that her love for art was more than a passion. She will be enrolling next year at the Basel’s Fine Art Academy, studying industrial design. Xheni is a bartender who loves to experiments on cocktails as much as with different shutter speeds on her manual Canon. She intern-shiped this summer for a collective of artist in Basel and her work was also published in Domus magazine.

credits

texts

Fiona MinoKleidi EskiKujtime (Mimi) BarushiStavri BurdaVullkan Qerimi

photos

Fiona MinoKleidi EskiSibel PipaVullkan Qerimi

design,concept and layout

Kleidi Eski