Driven by a belief in the continued relevance and contemporary application of urban thinking through architecture, whilst paying close attention to the specific history of the site, Xaveer De Geyter Architects (XDGA) has created a coastline stretching for kilometres in the Albanian seaside resort of Vlora. A new public space that is remarkable for its radical simplicity.

Albania’s coastline has something special: a rolling landscape, bays that follow one another rhythmically, and a perfect south-westerly orientation. But in Vlora, a seaside resort 150 kilometres from the capital Tirana, a lack of government funding and a policy of laissez-faire resulted in a poorly maintained pebble beach, a divide between the town and the beach, and widespread illegal privatisation of public space. In 2014, at the invitation of the Ministry of Urban Development and Tourism and the city of Vlora, Atelier Albania launched an international architectural competition to develop Vlora’s 8-kilometre-long coastline. XDGA won the competition and completed the first 3.5 kilometres of the new waterfront in 2017.