(“Text as submitted by architect”)
Jurtin Hajro
For more than 17 years, Jurtin has been teaching and practicing architectural design with a holistic approach towards life, space and building.He spent four years working for prestigious architecture firms in Ankara and Istanbul after graduating from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara.
While in Istanbul he designed the Epoka School of Architecture in Tirana, a building that has received international recognition. He returned to Albania to teach at Epoka University for the next 10 years. He soon established the Epoka Center for Research and Design in Architecture (CoRDA) and, over the course of three years, oversaw the design of several projects that went on to win awards for their innovative approach to combining design and research. In 2018, he jointly curated the Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale “Hapësira Zero Space”.
He established Commonsense Studio to put his architectural approach into action, building a strong experience of multidisciplinary processes and international collaborations.
Fiona Mali
An architect by education and planner by training, Fiona joined Commonsense Studio as co-leader in 2020.
After graduating at Epoka University in Tirana, she worked at the university’s Center of Research and Design in Architecture. In 2015 she joined the National Territorial Planning Agency of Albania for over four years, three of which she spent directing the Local Territorial Planning Department. In 2018, she led the research and publication for the Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, titled “Hapësira Zero Space”. In 2021, in collaboration with three colleagues, she returned to the Biennale as curator of “In Our Home”, the Albanian Pavilion in the 17th architecture exhibition.
For almost a decade now, Fiona has been relentless in her pursuit of opportunities to apply design in considerate, human-centered ways across all scales.
Practice Ideology
Commonsense Studio is an architecture practice based in Tirana, working in the fields of architecture, urban and landscape design. The studio has a sensitive approach towards design and is committed to produce spatial solutions stimulating sensorial perception in a human scale.
Considering architecture as a social designing tool, it aspires to bring significant cultural contribution to the community. It is involved in projects of different scales and collaborations with an extensive network of interdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, and observers to develop comprehensive knowledge on architecture.
