http://convertiblecity.blogspot.com/
This studio, at Polis University in Tirana/Albania from 28.02. - 11.03.2011, seeks to understand, explore and expand the limits and potentials contained within the terms 'formal' and 'informal' as they apply to a cross section of Tirana.
We understand these terms to operate across a range of scales and qualities: they are mental, social, economic, political, architectural, urban and cultural, and they operate here both historically and contemporaneously.
Informal thinking (however it comes into being) ranges from the lateral, imaginative and radical to the outright illegal. Formal thinking ranges from an idealised rationality of highest sophistication and order to outright oppression.
We believe that the architect needs to move, continuously, between these two ranges of thought.
Could Tirana be seen as a perfect example of both these states of thought and action?