Eco Park Durres is a large public park built on a former landfill that was a serious environmental problem for the city. The design is inspired by a famous local Roman mosaic, “The Beauty of Durres”, which serves as a metaphor for the transformation of a polluted site with negative connotations into a public space for recreation and environmental education.
The primary function of the project was to solve an environmental emergency problem. But this problem was not understood only as a technical one that could have been solved with a fenced sanitary landfill. It was also understood as a social one that required a more complex strategy focused on solving environmental problems, creating public recreational spaces for the city, and promoting ecological awareness among the citizens. This strategy envisions Eco-Park as an alive environmental machine capable of evolving in the future adding new thematic pavilions and educational programs.
The project transforms the contaminated landfill into a sanitary landfill formed by hills made of waste. The hills are covered with vegetation and sculpted creating a landart intervention. A network of winding paths makes the entire landscape walkable, turning it into a public park for the city equipped with recreational and sports facilities.
The largest hill, also made of compacted waste, houses on one side the highest climbing wall in the Balkans, which is ready to hold international competitions.
The Ecopavilion located at the entrance houses facilities for the park and a permanent exhibition that promotes ecological awareness among visitors and schools. The exterior walls of the pavilion are made of gabions built with galvanized steel filled with different recycled materials that form a vibrant patchwork composition. The use of materials commonly found in open landfills and waste dumps underlines the ecological message of Ecopark and encourages reducing, recycling and reusing.
