Rebuilding a City from the Eye of a Child

Tirana’s main children’s playground fits so neatly in the Albanian capital’s central Grand Park, it feels as if the playground’s wooded ridge has organically sprouted terracotta-colored climbing frames, swings, and crawl spaces. Children of all ages play under its tree canopy, the sound of their parents’ and grandparents’ chatter, knitting needles, and dominoes clacking from the surrounding benches.

More than simply a charming space, the playground is the spearhead of a grand plan to refashion Albania’s capital city as a more walkable, more sustainable, less car-dependent city—specifically by placing the needs of the city’s youngest citizens at its forefront. Its creation also sparked one of the most intense urban debates in Albania’s recent history, one that reveals the highly specific growing pains the country has endured since the fall of communism in 1991.