Portfolio '25 | Klara Elezaj

CONTENT:

01Fenway’s Reflections

02Educational Centre

03Wooden Boat Building School

04MFA Center for Teen Activities

05 Gathering Space | Cimitero San Michele

Fenway’s Reflections

Studio 04 | Spring 2025

Professor | Mark Mulligan

Typology |Individual; Performance Center

Location | 1400 Boylston St, Boston, MA

Being in a site in which there is a fusion of contrasts between traditional and contemporary; quiet and active; urban and nature; the FCAC center’s design concept is to create a balance between the contrasts of the site.

The aim of the center is to turn the complexity of the site into moments of detail captured from architectural movements. These include the visual communications between the inside and outside; the continuation of greenery; and the idea of the center being a journey into exploration instead of a direct final destination.

A contemporary glass structure wraps around a central brick-like core, symbolizing how the past is preserved while being shaped by youth and innovation. The choice of brick also reflects the site’s traditional theater, reinforcing the connection between old and new.

The back of the center features a green space that serves as an intersection point between performers, residents, and visitors. This flexible area can function as both a social hub and an outdoor performance space, adapting to different weather conditions.

Accessibility is implemented in the center through the utilization of elevators and well-planned pathways ensuring easy movement throughout the center, while experiencing it. The design also considers families, allowing parents and children to enjoy performances comfortably with necessary accommodations through a parents/children enclosed room, in which they are able to view the performances from afar.

The Fenway’s Refuge is more than just a space, it is an escape from routine, where the art of performance meets the rhythm of everyday life. Framed viewpoints and open connections transform the space into a journey of rediscovery, revealing moments often overlooked in everyday life. Rooted in tradition yet reimagined in a contemporary setting, the theater preserves the essence of classic performance while embracing innovation. Here, past and future merge, and culture, nature, and architecture come together to inspire new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

1 site plan

2 model photo

1 approach collages

private vs public diagram

Educational Centre

Studio 02 |Spring 2024

Professor | Pablo Castillo

Typology | Individual

Habitat | Wentworth Center

Location | 47 Station St., Boston, MA

Located in the Wentworth campus area, this project is a collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. The precedent studied was Casa Entremuros by the RCR Arquitectes, and the RCR architecture overall.

The services are placed into two extruded volumes, in order to become invisible to the eye, and placing the main facilities into c-platforms, creating internal relationships between individuals.

The exterior limits the visuality of the inside facilities, and welcomes individuals into the building, framing a longitudinal view of the entrance to the garden.

Some c-platforms are shifted outside of the rectangular frame to create shelter to people entering the building. The upward area of two of these platforms is used to create public spaces within the building, and thus contributing to the diversity of it.

The building is connected to the side ones, by a corresponding door on both of the buildings, and the gallery area is purposely placed on this floor in order to showcase to the people circulating from the buildings.

To avoid distraction from the exterior, the studio is placed in an underground c-platform, carrying an open area, allowing relaxation and sunlight to enter the space.

1 site plan

2 model photo

front elevation

back elevation

Studio 03 | Fall 2024

Professor | Ernesto Carvajal Maldonado

Typology | Individual

Location | Magazine Beach, Cambridge, Boston, MA

1- Noise Filtration

2- Human Perspective | Orientation

3- Urban/Nature Contrast

4- Lifestyle Balance

5- Transparency and Communication

1 site plan 2 model photo

MFA Center for Teen Activities

Studio 03 | Fall 2024

Professor | Ernesto Carvajal Maldonado

Typology | Individual Location | 160 St. Alphonsus St, Mission Hill, Boston, MA

Lost, I find myself walking in between a myriad of structures, immersing myself in their own character and their almost identical volumes.

I stop...my hands extend, feeling the coldness, roughness, but also the imperfect regularity of an enormous stone stack, reflecting its firmness and fortitude in front of me.

Fascinated, I found myself lost again, but this time lost in the past, lost in the story behind these capillary-like holding structures.

I start walking, searching for a sign, or maybe none...

Every step I take, I capture fragments of similar stones, in houses, in the church, laying in the ground; and here I find myself frozen again. This time in front of a huge parking lot, fully empty, but surrounded by an envelope of these stones, trying to give warmth and support to what is not there yet, but to the future’s distinctness that will be.

There, I think I found an answer, not really about the stone’s past or their story, but about their current purpose: For their past to be a foundation for the new, a hand to help one rise and to inherit some of its purpose to another.

I saw the time; it was already nighttime, and I was lost again... but this time, I was thinking about something other than being lost.

1 site plan

2 model photo

1 cut axon 2 parti diagram

Gathering Space

Cimitero San Michele

Studio 02 | Spring 2024

Professor | Pablo Castillo

Typology | Competition Style; Group

Group | Riley Zukas

Location | Venice, Italy

This project entails a building for reflection and memorial services, but the main space can double as event space for the nearby community. There will also be individual rooms for reflection, and a narthex/lobby with modest service functions required as well. The final design proposal serves a diversity of religious faiths, or even more broadly, a secular space for contemplation.

Design a small sanctuary where a visitor can observe and contemplate the passage of time and the nature of spiritual experience in a peaceful, stilled space. While limited in function and scale, what ‘contemplation’ means to each of us is limitless.

1 site plan

2 interior perspective | abstract

1 site perpective 2 concept diagram