Butrint National Park Visitor Center (Albania)

 

 

Sponsor: The Ministry of Culture of Albania, the Butrint Management Foundation (BMF)
Facilitator: Malcolm Reading Consultants (London)
Type: International, open (RfQ), 2-stage
Fees: None
Language: English
Timetable:
11 October 2022 – Deadline for questions
24 October 2022 – Deadline for stage-one responses
Process (stage 1)
The client seeks a dedicated and gifted design team that will connect with the project values and create charismatic yet practical architecture that perfectly relates to the extraordinary cultural and natural setting. The competition encourages participation from new and emerging studios as well as seasoned practices.
Competitor teams should include (as a minimum) the following disciplines:

• Architect (and Lead Designer)
• Landscape Architect
• Masterplanner
• Exhibition and Interpretation Designer
• Archaeologist
• Engineering Disciplines, including Sustainability
• Cost Consultant
• Wayfinding Consultant

The disciplines noted above may be provided by individual companies forming a design team, or by one (multidisciplinary) company. In addition, competitors may include other disciplines central to the design approach. The winning team will be required to include an architect licensed in Albania as part of the design team for the project. This firm’s license must cover design works related to archaeological sites. 
A shortlist of four design teams will be selected to participate in the second stage of the competition. The four teams will receive compensation in the amount of USD $10,000 for completion of their designs in stage 2.
Jury
Elva Margariti – Minister of Culture, Albania

Martin Mata, Co-CEO, AADF
Aleksandër Sarapuli, Co-CEO, AADF
Róisin Heneghan, Heneghan Peng Architects, Dublin, Ireland
Mónica Luengo, ATP Architecture, Madrid, Spain
Suzanne Ogge, studioMilou, Singapore
Emily Freeman-Attwood, Chair, Butrint Foundation
Background
Located in the south of the country, approximately 20 kilometers from the modern city of Sarandë and overlooking the Straits of Corfu, Butrint is the most significant archaeological site in Albania, and its chief cultural attraction. Butrint has an exceptional sense of place, cultural resonance and visual appeal, which comes from its rare combination of monuments within an unspoilt and spectacular natural setting. The wider National Park is endowed with hills, lakes, wetlands, salt marshes, plains, reed beds and coastal islands. Recognized for millennia as an inspirational place, Butrint was celebrated in Virgil’s Aeneid and in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus. The site’s highlights include an ancient Epirot Theater, Roman Forum and an early Byzantine Baptistery with a well-preserved mosaic pavement, along with other monuments dating from the Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine, Angevin, Venetian and Ottoman periods. The area is triply inscribed as a WHS, a National Park, and a Ramsar site*. Crucially, the new visitor center, expected to be carbon neutral, is intended to help the site better manage rising visitor numbers, projected to reach an annual 400,000 by 2030.

The new center, of up to 1,000 sqm, must receive, welcome and orient visitors, interpret the site, convey the Outstanding Universal Values of the WHS, and be a gateway to the wider National Park and a regional hub for other nearby natural and cultural visitor attractions. The center will be located approximately 1.5 kilometers from the entrance to the ancient city, in a spectacular location with panoramic views overlooking the Vivari Channel and the Mediterranean

For more information and to enter:
https://competitions.malcolmreading.com/butrint