ITALIAN PROJECTS AROUND THE WORLD – EDEN GARDEN EXPLAINED IN CANNES
During the Il Quotidiano Immobiliare conference at MIPIM in Cannes, dedicated to the Italian Projects in the World Award, Benedetto Camerana presented Eden Garden – The Zvërnec Project, illustrating its context and concept. The project is currently in the permitting phase. On the Adriatic coast of Albania, in the Vlora region, we are developing the master plan for a new coastal district: a contemporary hub of culture and tourism, integrating hotels, villas, and apartments into the pristine natural setting. The resort is a promontory of great scenic value (it’s wonderful), a 90-meter-high and 600-meter-long mountain overlooking a lagoon, the bay and promontory of Vlora, the island of Sazan, and the Zvërnec lagoon with islands, monasteries, and pine forests.Albania is experiencing rapid growth, in some ways comparable to that of post-war Italy, often accompanied by a less attentive approach to landscape conservation. At the same time, the country is opening up to international expertise: for this reason, local investors have entrusted Camerana with the project’s development. In this context, our firm’s approach stands out for its organic and non-invasive vision: the architecture does not impose itself, but integrates into the landscape and nature. Benedetto Camerana, a passionate and pioneering exponent of architecture in organic dialogue with nature since his youth, conceived and designed a compositional structure that is deeply integrated, immersed, and almost embedded in the landscape.
The project does not involve excavations in the promontory, but rather an inverse process: the earth and vegetation cover and lean on the architecture to mask it. The volumes emerge with natural planes and lightweight glass surfaces, the green roofs open to the light, like reflections along the coast. Alongside these, several panoramic villas will be truly embedded in the rock, partly through the redevelopment of bunkers from the Enver Hoxha era. As an alternative to the often aggressive volumes found elsewhere in the country, Eden Garden follows the site’s orography and develops in terraces, with a system of steps that accompanies the curves and changes in level.
The principle is that of camouflage: an architecture that dissolves into the greenery, blending with the landscape rather than imposing itself upon it. Unfortunately, the project did not win, even though it was highly praised.
One Works, a large international firm led by Lonardo Cavali, a colleague and friend of Camerana, won with an operational design for the new airport terminal and train station in Riga, Latvia.