Centre of Klan TV means to become “beacon of new phase of growth” in Albanian capital
OODA architects company has won an international competition to design the headquarters of a television channel in Tirana, Albania, which aims to be “iconic” …”the beacon” of a new phase of growth of the city.
Speaking to Lusa, OODA co-founder (OODA standing for Oporto Office for Design and Architecture , Diogo Brito, stressed the importance of this project for the growth and internationalisation of the firm – and “the weight” of being from the same country as the two winners of the Pritzker Prize – considered the most important award in architecture – Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza.
The new headquarters of Klan TV, a private Albanian television operator, will occupy an area of 10,000 square metres in an area of the Albanian capital “which is seeing exponential growth”.
The project is inspired by “a set of film reels and the characteristics of local art and architecture”, Brito tells Lusa.
“We were invited to participate in this international competition, which in itself is already very positive, and we ended up winning. From what we understood, what distinguished us from the others was that we designed a building that responds to the programme that was requested, in terms of functionality, and for the figure that refers to the imagination of cinema, of television”, he explained.
One of the project’s objectives is, he pointed out, “that this be an iconic building in local architecture and that it become a kind of beacon of the city’s new phase of growth”.
For OODA, which has 45 projects underway and more than half a million square metres under construction, the distinction in this international competition “is a milestone” in the company’s history, and Diogo Brito said he hoped “it will also be synonymous” with the company’s growth.
“For the Portuguese scale we are a firm that already has visibility, but we want to expand. We already have our brand in Brazil, the United States, Zimbabwe and China. But this is undoubtedly our first major international project, due to the media resonance it has”.
OODA was founded in 2010 by Diogo Brito, Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, Francisco Lencastre, João Jesus and Julião Pinto Leite, and currently has over 60 people working on its projects.
For a recent drone video of Tirana to see the scale of the city, and construction already underway, click here
Source material: LUSA
