Berat Island

At an age when we are aware that construction activities are one of the main causes for carbon emissions and energy consumption, it is important that our intervention in Berat Island is conscious about these issues. We have the opportunity to redefine the “traditional” Mediterranean models of developing Tourism which have destroyed their landscape from Spain to Greece, just to mention two of them. We strongly believe a sensitive low-intervention high-impact strategy is what a city like Berat requires.

The proposal for the River Park identifies Berat’s two major assets—the park and the river—as the new green and blue DNA stemming from their unique correlation and adjacency to the city centre. The principal challenge of the masterplan is to reinvent Berat’s orientation towards its river and to the Osumi Island through environmental and culture-led regeneration, establishing Osumi River as the centre of community life and enterprise. We do not want to create “destination” program proposal but, on the contrary, the riverfront should become a true riverside interface for the city of Berat.