Faith Park

Faith Park is conceived as a landscape of shared spirituality — a park before anything else, where coexistence replaces singular belief. Rooted in Albania’s legacy of interreligious harmony, the project transforms a centuries-old culture of tolerance into space and matter, offering a terrain where diversity becomes dialogue. The project originates from an international design competition launched by AKPT and the Albanian Investment Corporation, inviting multidisciplinary teams to envision a new public landscape for Tirana dedicated to faith, memory, and coexistence. Developed through the collaboration of Openfabric, Park, AMDL Circle, Tharm architects, MIC-Hub, and Lachlan Turczan, the proposal was shortlisted among the five finalists. It reinterprets Tirana’s role as a Capital of Tolerance, giving physical form to a national tradition of peaceful coexistence among religions — a defining aspect of Albanian identity and pride. The masterplan unfolds across sixty hectares at the southern edge of Tirana, where the urban fabric dissolves into the Mediterranean landscape. Here, geometry and ecology merge to form a civic terrain that celebrates both difference and connection. A symbolic grid structures the park’s circulation, creating a network of paths, stairs, and intersections that organize the steep topography while framing twenty-eight perspectives and thirty-three points of encounter. Movement through the park becomes a meditative act, turning walking itself into a form of reflection and ritual. The design articulates a vertical narrative that connects earth and sky: from the mineral base of the Threshold Building to the religious and wellness structures at mid-slope, and the light, elevated eco-conscious accommodations that rest on stilts among the trees. Each level corresponds to a different intensity of experience — from the collective to the intimate, from community to solitude — inviting visitors to ascend through a spatial metaphor of spiritual growth. The Threshold marks the park’s gateway — an architectural and symbolic hinge where memory, dialogue, and welcome converge. It includes the Welcome Pavilion, the Museum of Remembrance, the Event Structure, the Restaurant, and the Faith Garden, each conceived as a space for encounter and contemplation. Carved into the mountain, the complex dissolves into the terrain, becoming both landscape and architecture, both entrance and destination. Across the site, a series of landscape follies punctuate the grid — small structures and clearings that host art installations, collective rituals, and performative acts. These installations translate water, sound, and light into immersive experiences, projecting fluid patterns that accompany the visitor’s ascent. Together with the landscape design, they balance order and freedom: a structured framework that organizes the natural slope while leaving room for spontaneity, growth, and interpretation. The masterplan also integrates an environmentally conscious mobility strategy, promoting accessibility through shuttles and slow-mobility systems that connect the park to the city of Tirana. This infrastructural layer reinforces the project’s civic dimension, making Faith Park not only a spiritual destination but also a sustainable public landscape. Ultimately, Faith Park proposes a new understanding of the sacred — one that is open, inclusive, and rooted in the land. By weaving together architecture, landscape, infrastructure, and art, the project becomes both a reflection of Albania’s multireligious identity and a vision for its future: a place where geometry and ecology, matter and spirit, earth and sky coexist in a continuous act of balance — a landscape of tolerance for the world to share.