Anna Yunitsyna

Introduction: The study is focused on the analysis of the energy performance of mass-housing residential buildings in Albania and further evaluation of the opportunities for energy retrofit of these buildings. Currently, in Albania, energy performance evaluation is mandatory for newly constructed buildings, but there are no approaches that would address the existing building stock. Methods: The goal of this study is to evaluate apartment buildings of the communist period in Tirana and Shkodra and apply a number of passive and active retrofit strategies, which are appropriate in the Mediterranean climate conditions. Results and Discussion: Improvement of thermal conductivity and energy balance can be achieved through the additional insulation of the buildings’ walls and roofs and window replacement, installation of photovoltaic panels and energy-efficient lighting. The application of passive strategies reduces energy losses in Tirana by 56% and in Shkodra— by 57%. Conclusions: Instal...

Accountability is a crucial issue in university quality control processes. The answerability for performance is usually assessed at the institutional level, granting universities considerable independence. This study presents an overview of accountability as competence at the student level, following a bottom-up approach. The overview exemplifies cases from the design-based study programs. This chapter explores accountability in higher education in a bipartite structure: conceptual and empirical. The conceptual exploration draws a framework of values and principles which guide a designer's approach to the profession and practice, and accountability is one of them. The conceptual overview of accountability focuses on an exchange of reasoning and social practice of being accountable to others. It further discusses design accountability parallel to existing approaches of designing for accountability. The empirical exploration situates accountability in the design education domain as a crucial learning competence to be addressed within the learner-centred paradigm.

During the last decade, there has been massive growth in the construction of large residential complexes and apartment blocks in Tirana. Urban density is increasing due to the fact that traditional low-story villas are demolished, and the space of the former private gardens is used for the new construction with high built ratio. The public areas which are adequate for such dense cities are not provided and therefore residents have a tendency to spend more time indoors. This research aims to evaluate the spatial qualities of the newly constructed 3+1 apartments using the Space Syntax visibility graph analysis (VGA). VGA allows to compare the overall exposure of the room, to estimate its level of privacy and control and to check if it is suitable for the assigned function. Analysis is performed for the apartments of different price levels in order to find the influence of price to the design quality and residential comfort. The results show that the degree of separation of the public ...

As a spatial form, the grid pattern has influenced a range of human activities, from urban planning, architecture, and modern art to graphic design, archaeology, and cartography. The grid is easy to lay out, easy to comprehend, and divides land into uniform units suitable for development. It is not a form, but a method of establishment of rational spatial divisions. At the same time it gives the most simple and most flexible solution. At the urban scale it organizes the city pattern with its streets and blocks, creates the architectural composition within the urban block or unit, orders the elements of the building. Grid is a highly efficient method of spatial organization from constructive point of view, but it creates difficulties in the functional organization of dwelling - universal unit can not be equally used both for the inhabited house areas and for the serving spaces. The study examines the cases of applying the grid structure in housing on the levels of the dwelling unit (...

Accountability is a crucial issue in university quality control processes. The answerability for performance is usually assessed at the institutional level, granting universities considerable independence. This study presents an overview of accountability as competence at the student level, following a bottom-up approach. The overview exemplifies cases from the design-based study programs. This chapter explores accountability in higher education in a bipartite structure: conceptual and empirical. The conceptual exploration draws a framework of values and principles which guide a designer's approach to the profession and practice, and accountability is one of them. The conceptual overview of accountability focuses on an exchange of reasoning and social practice of being accountable to others. It further discusses design accountability parallel to existing approaches of designing for accountability. The empirical exploration situates accountability in the design education domain a...

The paper studies the dwelling space patterns which are used as basic sources the housing standards and regulations. Research concentrates on the housing architecture of Europe. There are examined the dwelling standards of 31 European countries and 7 regions. The selected countries are grouped consequently according to climate and economy criteria as Northern, Central and South European countries, and as High Income, Upper-middle Income and Lower-middle Income countries. The study focuses on the growth of the minimal area of apartment and its connection with the climate and income. Research continues with the analysis of the minimal area of the habitable rooms. The climate and economical conditions directly influence to the overall size of the dwelling. On the level of room, there is influence to the size of the rooms, where the social activities are performed. The size of the living room, kitchen and integrate living space varies, meanwhile the double and single bedroom remains sta...

Composition and spatial organisation of the dwelling can vary due to the multiple factors, such as economical, climatic and cultural, but the functional organisation of dwelling is defined by basic human activities. There is a desire in the new paradigm of construction the dwelling, which may satisfy the constantly changing needs of the inhabitants. Universal dwelling can be based on principle, so that every room can easily adopt the basic living activities without significant structural changes. Universality in use can be achieved by several techniques-by creating the spaces with equal size, access and similar spatial qualities. Contemporary housing in Albania is constructed without following of any housing space standards, which makes it important to evaluate the spatial qualities of the existing housing developments and to propose the basic guidelines for construction. Within the study 90 apartments built during last 25 years are analysed and the general tendencies of the changes...

Urban pattern in every city or district is a result of interconnection of the various factors, such as climate, tradition, economy and culture. Different configurations of the urban development allow to the certain extent to control the outdoor microclimate of the cities or districts. The geometrical properties of the buildings, which form the pattern, are the instrument of creation of the urban microclimate, and at the same time they influence at the energy consumption of the building. Density is an economical factor, which shapes the development of the urban districts and settlements. There is a common tendency to intensify the land use and to construct the maximum number of the dwelling units per area. Within the study there were developed six parametric models of the different urban morphologies. For each of the models the land plot is fixed, but the density of the built units and their position are changing according to the height of the building. The idealized models are compa...

European cities had been developed historically as compact and dense structures, where the specific urban microclimate was achieved through the arrangement of the units of the urban pattern. The energy flows, such as transportation energy and the heating or cooling energy, were reduced. With the further development of the cities, the various urban morphologies came to place and the city energy demands grew. One of the ways of reduction of such demand is the creation of compact urban pattern, which is exposed to the maximum of solar radiation and potentially may reduce the heating demands of the buildings. The energy, which is received by building, is defined by its shape and orientation and the compacity depends on its geometrical properties, such as surface to volume ratio and the plot coverage. Within the study the various urban morphologies of Prague are tested in order to find the most energy efficient ones. The urban structures are selected according to their geometrical shape ...

Composition and spatial organisation of the dwelling can vary due to the multiple factors, such as economical, climatic and cultural, but the functional organisation of dwelling is defined by basic human activities. There is a desire in the new paradigm of construction the dwelling, which may satisfy the constantly changing needs of the inhabitants. Universal dwelling can be based on principle, so that every room can easily adopt the basic living activities without significant structural changes. Universality in use can be achieved by several techniques – by creating the spaces with equal size, access and similar spatial qualities. Contemporary housing in Albania is constructed without following of any housing space standards, which makes it important to evaluate the spatial qualities of the existing housing developments and to propose the basic guidelines for construction. Within the study 90 apartments built during last 25 years are analysed and the general tendencies of the chang...

The main aim of the present research is to advance the state of the art of the accessibility in housing design. It addresses how to include the category of disabled people in the design process. In addition, the research includes the accessibility issues at different stages or completely accessible with different functions. The paper explores the key concepts via an indepth theoretical background towards a barrier-free building design. Statistical evidences of the disabled people in Albania are illustrated. As case study, prefabricated buildings adopted in the early ’80 s are used to illustrate the accessibility limitations in housing design and to explore the modularity of the structure and the corresponding plan layouts. The results showed that prefabricated housing design is rather limited to accessibility, adaptability and universal design strategies.

Composition and spatial organization of the dwelling can vary due to the multiple factors, such as economical, climatic and cultural, but the functional organization of dwelling is defined by basic human activities. Universal dwelling can be based on principle – every space inside can easily change its function. As soon as dwelling is observed through its inhabitant, it is important to evaluate, how the structure is corresponding towards his constantly changing needs, and how to find the most effective and reasonable way for adaptation. Construction of the universal dwelling brings it to the other level of sustainability – dwelling spaces can be used more effectively by the users, and new living activity will not need significant additional material, time and financial resources. The study starts from the listing of all the variety of living actions, which are mentioned in dwelling space standards of 31 European countries and 7 regions. The frequency of reference of the monofunction...

The dwelling is a significant medium through which it is being perceived and interpreted the social, economic, political, and cultural state of a community. Space Syntax Analysis is a methodology used by for evaluating the spatial layout organization of a house. Its parameters spot our crucial issues for reading through numbers beyond the physical representation of a dwelling plan: the cultural and social values. The case study is Tirana, the capital city of Albania, a city with a rapid and uncontrolled urban growth. There are analysed the characteristics of internal layout organization of 60 apartments of 3+1 layouts, as the most representative to display spatial diversity among dwelling units built in Tirana since 1980’s till 2015. These apartments’ construction corresponds to three different periods of different economic and political development phases which are socialist period (the last decade), post-socialist/transition period, and democracy. The aim of this study is to find ...

During the second half of the XX century Albania was a socialist country, which had influenced to its economical development, social and cultural life. Traces of this period can be seen today in urbanism and architecture of the country. The major development had occurred in the city centers, residential districts, and the most of the politically or culturally important buildings such as libraries, schools, banks, hospitals, municipality buildings and palaces of culture were constructed at that time. The palaces of Culture, as a typology, which was taken from Soviet Union, were supposed to generate social and cultural activities and became one of the most important buildings of the city. The study is focused on the architectural analysis of the palaces of culture in Tirana, Durres and Vlore. The aim of the work is to describe the architectural typology of the Palace of Culture, to distinguish the main principles of its spatial organization, to find similarities in the architectural design and in urban position of the buildings, to understand, how the specificity of the city had influenced to the building size, its functional program and design. The study is based on the site trips and the analysis of the archive drawings. The analysis of the three case studies is organized in several stages, starting from the comparison of the functional organization of the buildings, proceeding with the specific spaces, such as the concert hall and ending with the analysis of the architectural style of the building, its volumetrical composition, facade organization and materials. The three Palaces of Culture were constructed as the centres of social and cultural life of the cities, and even nowadays their initial meaning is preserved. The works gives an overview of the Palace of Culture building typology, and provides the set of the typical features, which can be adapted for the design of the building with similar functions.