The workshop was organized with students by the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning in Pristina.
The workshop was held from September 5-7, 2024, in Pristina.
The essays from the participants you will find on the link below.
Goal of Workshop:
· A focus point of study could be the point where the Vellusha and Prishtina rivers meet, which is the parking lot behind the Palace of Youth and Sports.
· Participants will have the opportunity to attend daily lectures on urbanism, landscape design, studies on water systems, and treatment of water elements in an urban context, based on examples from different cities and their relationship to water.
PRISTINA WITHOUT RIVER
Essay by Muhamet Spahiu
The capital of Kosovo was developed in different periods influenced by economic, political developments, etc. In the last 25 years, a rapid development began in the field of construction, led by private investors. Also increased migration from the village to the city, caused the city to have no capacity for proper urban planning. Unfortunately, this has also happened to the two rivers of Pristina, which earlier brought a better quality of life. Their transformation happened in two stages: 1) in the 70s, concrete rings were used to create the bed of underground rivers; this method of coverage was partial in some parts of the city; 2) in recent years, seeing that these rivers are becoming non-functional for the city, the decision was made that they should be covered, in parts rivers have crossed, to be turned into new roads. The municipality of Pristina, as the only institution that deals with city planning, has not made any project to restore the situation previous of the rivers. Nowadays we can meet few people talking about the rivers.
Prishtina without a river is a term that is often used, but Prishtina often becomes a river during the rains. Due to numerous constructions and poor road infrastructure. The roads have flooded, causing great material damage to the citizens. This even threatens the lives of citizens by becoming disabled, an abnormal development of life.
The informal infrastructure and the illegal construction of many new constructions after the war has caused the underground water capacity to get worse, not being able to accept at the same time the high level of rain and sewage. Despite these problems, again the topic of rivers has not been raised by urban planners and the Municipality of Pristina.
This Workshop aims to raise the awareness of our society, how rivers are necessary to develop life in the city, not forgetting the many problems that are current today and each of them must be handled in a professional manner. Proper knowledge in the field of planning should be distributed to young planners, so that these young planners can be a spark that would bring the city an improvement of the current state.