Anxhela Kreko
Contents:
1. Residential
2. Commercial
3. Objects
Residential
New Identity / ongoing
Location: Roehampton
As a young person who has lived in London for a few years, I have experienced the change and the development of the housing crisis. My experience is limited compared to people relying on social housing who were significantly affected by the crisis for many years. The quality of social housing has been deteriorating, causing many people to live in substandard conditions. Housing estates now face issues such as poor maintenance, negligence, and crime, creating a negative atmosphere. I believe that atmosphere and public perception can be shaped through innovative design interventions, and breaking the vicious cycle which has become the norm over the past decade. For this reason, my project will focus on providing social equality, and this can be achieved by renovating the units in Allbrook House, which are planned to be demolished. This would result in a loss of hundreds of flats, and given that people are in desperate need of housing, every structure demolished is a lost opportunity to house individuals in need. Therefore, this project aims to provide better living environments to young adults in need of housing and to adapt an older building to contemporary needs and design.
My Home Is You / 2022
Location: London
This project consisted of examining, understanding and surveying personal space. To understand this better, I had to question and discover what the surroundings meant to me and what my feelings were when I was looking at them. One of the most important questions was: Does this place remind me of home? If yes, what is it? While asking myself these types of questions, I understood that my understanding of home is different. What makes me feel at home is the people surrounding me, as I believe that the influence of people is an important factor which can define the meaning of home. When you remove them, you can notice the crucial part of the home is absent. Therefore, this project helped me get a better understanding of the space I lived in and get more comfortable with technical drawings.
Commercial
Privacy And Productivity -The modern workplace dilemma/ 2024
Location: 150 Aldersgate, Barbican.
This project consisted of designing a new workplace for the new TikTok offices in London. The first part of the project consisted of researching the context, the client and background information with a group of peers while the second part was to develop my personal project. My project is about the importance of personal workspace and how it can affect employees’ well-being. For this project, I have focused on understanding the primary users’ fundamental needs (privacy and personal space), two elements that are not present in an open-plan office. My premise was to abandon open-plan layout and instead, integrate these two elements into the office to increase the users’ productivity, well-being and satisfaction.
Through sketches and model-making I have explored a range of design layouts to make the selected floor feel as open as possible. I created several private offices which were kept on the sides to avoid disruption and keep the space not overcrowded. To allow collaboration from the private offices, I have decided to create windows to connect the offices. I tested out the visibility, the aesthetic and functionality of the windows and of the private office itself by utilising a variety of shapes and sizes. I chose to use reeded glass to provide the sense of privacy while still being connected to the workplace environment.
Casa Calma / 2024
Location: Slovakia
When I think of atmosphere I think of a calm space, I believe that this is associated with my continuous research and development of how I deal and cope with stress and anxiety. My proposed project was to assist people who struggle with stress and anxiety and help them by calming down. To develop this project, I chose a village in the High Tatras, Slovakia as this was the closest place to calmness that I could access from my memory. When people feel stress, hearing nature sounds reduces the level of stress. I have created a calm space in a calming environment to highlight the concept of calmness and preserve it. This was to provide a unique experience and highlight the fact that by designing this space, the atmosphere of the landscape will be radically changed, and it will be exaggerated.
Impermanence unveiled / 2023
Location: Jubille Park, Canary Wharf
In this project I collaborated with fellow students from other design courses to develop a creative response to one chosen climate change issue. Therefore, we created ‘Impermanence Unveiled’ which was a temporary pop-up installation that tackles the issue of consumption waste. The installation was located in Canary Wharf, which is the heart of London’s finance. This is the location of a wide range of corporate businesses that use the place as their headquarters. It aimed to make people realise the potential issues that the world is currently facing. To create the installation, biodegradable materials were used in an interactive and evolving display.
Constructed from Flora felt, produced using PET plastic bottles is then converted into a felt-like material.
New And Old Purpose / 2023
Location: Triangle Space, College of Arts.
The purpose of this project was to work on the Triangle space, which is an exhibition space located in Chelsea college of Arts. One of the design strategies had to be applied for the development of this work and two examples of projects that applied the same strategy had to be chosen. My aim for this project was to keep the Triangle space an exhibition space and add a little cafe inside to create a different type of experience for the visitors. The aim is to create a space where you can grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy the work of UAL students in the city. My design consists of creating different platforms situated in different heights and with different dimensions, based on my two selected architectural projects. Some platforms will be supported by the existing columns (image) and others by new columns. The platforms will be all connected in a way that they are practical.
C’est Chic / 2023
Location: Chelsea College of Arts, London.
This project was realised at the end of my first year at university. The aim of the work was to find a creative way to use an unutilised area of the university campus into a club and one of my biggest inspiration was Studio54. The idea of the club when thinking of a fun enviroment, where students can socialise and let loose.
Objects
Nightstand / 2024
Location: Narva Art Residency, Estonia.
I had the opportunity to partecipate to a studio project that took place in Narva, Estonia, in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts. The brief was to design a piece of furniture for Narva Art Residency, which is a residency that provides space for selected artists. The artists can to develop and exhibit their work there. Therefore, the aim was to design pieces of furniture that could improve the artists living their day-to-day lives in the building. It was a challenging experience as the time to design and develop the work was limited. Nevertheless, was an engaging and rewarding experience as I had the chance to interact with other people sharing my same passion.
The Vanity Shuttle / 2022
Location: Chelsea College of Arts, London.
A chair is a vital furnishing element. It can be aesthetic and functionally pleasing. The chair as a primary element has been remade by many designers. However, in this particular project, the chair served as a second element to the component that I designed and built. The aim of the component was to complement and ease my morning daily routines. Additionally, it served as a tool that helped me feel more confident and more relaxed. One of my biggest inspirations was the LC4 Chase Longue chair designed by therefore, the choice of my materials and their dimensions were chosen to create a modern, elegant and unique design.