selgascano's sky-K rises as two colorful residential 'chimneys' in albania

selgascano’s sky-k rises as two bright coastal chimneys

Sky-K by Selgascano rises in Durrës, Albania, as a pair of slender residential towers set just behind Rruga Taulantia, the seaside street recently shaped into a linear park along the Adriatic coast. The project sits in a dense coastal fabric, where apartment blocks, palm-lined promenades, port infrastructure, and beach life press closely together. From the water, the building appears almost suddenly above the skyline, its red and yellow volumes catching the sun from behind the existing city front.

The site is set back from the waterfront, which gives the tower a strange double presence. It belongs to a small hidden lot at ground level, yet its height and color make it part of the wider city image. Selgascano uses that condition directly. The building does little to blend into its surroundings, but its thin footprint keeps the intervention compact, allowing light and views to pass around it.

images © Playtime

a small footprint with a gardened ground level

Selgascano, working with FRPO Rodríguez & Oriol, plans the base of Sky-K as an open Mediterranean garden, bringing vegetation into a tight residential block. The tower meets the ground through six concrete columns, lifting the main volume above the site and leaving the lower level available as a planted space for nearby 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.

That choice gives the tower a different relationship to the street than the neighboring buildings. Instead of filling the lot edge to edge, the structure rises from a planted pocket, with trees and shrubs gathering around its concrete legs. The garden softens the encounter with the tower’s scale, while the lifted base gives the building a lighter stance than its height might suggest.

Sky-K rises behind Durrës’ waterfront as two slender residential towers by Selgascano

two chimneys above the coast of durrës, Albania

Above the podium, Sky-K splits into two slim vertical bodies, which Selgascano describes as chimney-like towers, each with a small plan footprint and a distinct color. One rises in yellow, the other in red, and both are wrapped in an undulating concrete surface that draws the eye upward.

The corrugated texture gives the facades a strong vertical rhythm, while the rounded openings interrupt that surface in irregular clusters. These apertures 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 inhabited edges, with balconies set inside the depth of the facade.

the red and yellow towers create a bright vertical marker above the Adriatic coast

terraces as framed views

The openings give each apartment a direct relationship to the surrounding landscape. Views extend toward the Adriatic Sea, the port of Durrës, and the hills behind the city, creating a 360-degree reading of the site from within the tower. The terraces also support cross-ventilation, with each unit gaining access to at least two outdoor spaces.

This is where the project’s graphic quality becomes architectural. The rounded cuts are bold from the outside, but they also work as shaded rooms for the apartments. Their depth protects the glass line, which remains visually recessed from the facade, so the exterior reads as a continuous colored concrete skin punctured by outdoor rooms.

six concrete columns lift the oval podium above the Mediterranean garden

color in a dense urban field

Sky-K carries Selgascano’s familiar appetite for color into a coastal Albanian setting shaped by housing blocks, beach infrastructure, and the city’s industrial past. The red and yellow towers stand apart from the pale concrete and beige apartment slabs around them, yet their chimney-like form also gives them a link to Durrës’ port history.

Seen from the beach, the towers appear above the promenade like two vertical markers, partially hidden by palms and apartment buildings. Seen from above, the red volume turns into a slim cylinder against the blue water, its rounded openings catching interior shadows and flashes of color. The building’s strongest gesture is simple: two thin residential forms, bright enough to enter the city’s coastal silhouette, compact enough to leave room for air, planting, and views.

the ribbed concrete facades emphasize the height of the two chimney-like towers