Albania should be considered a potentially rich country in terms of human capital and natural resources. How can these be activated to sustainably boost locally added value for what Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has termed Next Generation Albania?

The challenges in Albania are immense when looked at from the perspective of having to catch up with the rest of Europe. On the other hand, all nations now face the challenge of how to successfully make the transition to the next economy, to a green economy in a resilient post-fossil future. Could Albania not skip the catching-up phase, and focus instead on how to leapfrog into the twenty-first century?

To be able to do so, Albania must develop its own vision and strategy on the basis of the unique characteristics, cultural values, and scenic qualities of the country itself, and frame them in a global context. In February 2014, therefore, Atelier Albania was established, integrated into the Albanian Ministry of Urban Development and with the proactive participation of iabr/UP (the R&D Institute of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam – IABR), and the Brussels design office 51N4E. Atelier Albania’s main ambition is to design a sustainable economic development model for Next Generation Albania. Its main priority is to activate the potential of Albania’s territory by understanding it as a natural ecology: a coherent ecosystem with a metabolism made up of material flows, such as water, food, and energy.