selgascano’s sky-k rises as two bright seaside chimneys
Sky-K from Selgascano goes up to Durrës, Albaniaas a pair of thin housing towers it is located just behind Rruga Taulantia, the coastal road that has recently been transformed into a linear park along the Adriatic coast. The project sits on a dense coastal web, where apartment blocks, palm-lined promenades, port infrastructure and beach life pressed closely together. From the water, the building appears almost suddenly above the horizon, its red and yellow volumes catching the sun behind the existing city front.
The site is set back from the waterfront, which gives the tower a curious double presence. It belongs to a small hidden plot at ground level, yet its height and color make it part of the larger picture of the city. Selgascano uses this situation directly. The building does little to blend into its surroundings, but its slim footprint keeps the intervention compact, allowing light and views to flow around it.
images © Game time
a small footprint with a garden at ground level
Selgascanoworking with FRPO Rodriguez & Orioldesigns the base of Sky-K as an open Mediterranean garden, bringing vegetation to a narrow residential block. The tower meets the ground through six concrete columns, elevating the main volume above the site and leaving the lower level available as a planted space for the surrounding residents. In the project description, Selgascano frames this move as a way to minimize the building’s footprint while giving something back to the local neighborhood.
This choice gives the tower a different relationship to the street than the neighboring buildings. Rather than filling the lot from edge to edge, the structure rises from a planted pocket, with trees and shrubs clustering around its concrete feet. The garden softens the encounter with the scale of the tower, while the raised base gives the building a lighter stance than its height suggests.
Sky-K rises behind the Durrës waterfront as two slender residential towers next to Selgascano
two chimneys above the coast of Durrës, Albania
Above the podium, the Sky-K splits into two thin vertical bodies, which Selgascano describes as chimney-like towers, each with a small footprint and a distinct color. One rises in yellow, the other in red, both wrapped in an undulating concrete surface that draws the eye upwards.
The wavy texture gives the facades a strong vertical rhythm, while the rounded openings interrupt the surface in irregular clusters. These openings are terrace openings, cut through the colored shell in different sizes and proportions. From a distance, they read almost like punched holes in a thick skin. Up close they reveal residential edges, with balconies set into the depth of the facade.
the red and yellow towers create a bright vertical marker above the Adriatic coast
terraces as a framed view
The openings give each apartment a direct relationship with the surrounding landscape. The view extends to the Adriatic Sea, the port of Durrës and the hills behind the city, creating a 360-degree reading of the site through the tower. The terraces also support cross ventilation, with each unit having access to at least two outdoor spaces.
This is where the graphic quality of the work becomes architecture. The rounded cuts are bold from the outside, but also act as shaded rooms for the apartments. Their depth protects the glass line, which remains visually recessed from the facade, so that the exterior appears as a continuous colored concrete skin pierced by exterior spaces.
six concrete columns raise the oval platform above the Mediterranean garden
color in a dense urban field
Sky-K brings Selgascano’s well-known flair for color to a seaside Albanian setting shaped by apartment buildings, beach infrastructure and the city’s industrial past. The red and yellow towers stand out from the soft concrete and beige slabs of flats around them, yet their chimney-like form also gives them a link to the history of the port of Durrës.
From the beach, the towers can be seen above the promenade like two vertical pointers, partially hidden by palm trees and apartment buildings. From above, the red volume turns into a slender cylinder against the blue water, its rounded openings catching inner shadows and flashes of color. The building’s strongest gesture is simple: two slender residential forms, bright enough to fit into the city’s coastal silhouette, compact enough to leave room for air, planting and views.
ribbed concrete facades emphasize the height of the two chimney-like towers
