Landscape project / Large-scale project. A reflection on green structures and territorial networks as key-elements for the development of a sustainable Southern Albanian Riviera

Within the conception of a multi-disciplinary and large-scale project like the one of the southern Albanian Riviera competition, it is fundamental to consider impacts and implications of landscape planning especially as an opportunity of valorization and re-qualification of the territorial framework. An integrated approach to these matters should be able to combine local heritage (both material and immaterial), natural features, urban settlements and landscape peculiarities, pursuing the aim of local re-configuration yet contextualized within a broader and shared vision. Starting from the assumption that a large-scale project is a landscape project, this essay wants to stress the importance of ecology as the paradigm for the implementation of new local development policies in which territorial networks and greenways could play a fundamental role within the advancement of a greater vision grounded on environmental, infrastructural, and socio-economical relationships. The competition area has shown remarkable potentials in terms of touristic development but the risks coming from enlarging the already existing gap between the coastal settlements and the inner ones -especially in terms of resources to be empowered and exploited- are to be carefully taken into consideration and managed during the whole planning process. This is where integrated strategies of large-scale planning and territorial networks must come into play, empowering the existing site characteristics in order to conceive a unitarian vision for a new sustainable southern Albanian Riviera.