Student Work from “Faith Park” Studio on View in Albania

People outside under trees in a plaza looking at mounted drawings.
Exhibition of student work from "Faith Park" studio, on view in Tirana, Albania, June 2026.
Date
June 23, 2026
Author
GSD News
AnnouncementsNewsUrbanismArchitecture

An exhibition of work produced in “Faith Park,” a studio held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) in spring 2026, is currently on view in Tirana, Albania. Led by Xaveer De Geyter, design critic in architecture, and Phillip Denny (PhD ’25), the studio challenged students to imagine a new kind of public space dedicated to the diverse religions and worldviews of a multicultural society.

People outside under trees in a plaza looking at mounted drawings.
Side view, exhibition of student work from “Faith Park” studio.

Situated within the Grand Park of Tirana (Parku i Madh), the city’s primary green space, the exhibition showcases 14 student projects conceived for 10-hectare sites throughout the park. Integrating urban design, landscape architecture, and architecture, the proposals draw on Albania’s history of religious pluralism to reimagine conventional religious spaces through shared experiences of nature, light, and community. Together, they explore how the public realm can foster reflection, gathering, and coexistence while offering new visions for one of Tirana’s most significant communal landscapes.

The exhibition takes place amid growing international attention to Tirana as a center of architectural and urban experimentation. The annual Bread & Heart Festival has helped position the city as a forum for dialogue on design, landscape, development, and public life, bringing together leading practitioners from around the world. Among them are GSD faculty members Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93), Kajima Professor in Practice of Architecture; Chris Reed, professor in practice of landscape architecture and co-director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design program; Fabrizio Barozzi, John C. Portman Design Critic in Architecture; Francesca Benedetto, design critic in landscape architecture; Minsuk Cho, Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture; and Bas Smets, professor in practice of landscape architecture, whose participation reflects the GSD’s ongoing engagement with the design culture emerging in Tirana and across the region.

Axon of exhibition arrangement.
Exhibition of student work from “Faith Park” studio, on view in Tirana, Albania, June 2026.
Wooden structure of exhibition boards outside.
Exhibition structure for display boards.

Student participants in the Faith Park exhibition:

Aarif Ahmad (MArch ’27), Jon Breuer (MArch ’26), Sun Woo Byun (MArch ’26), Noel Garcia (March ’26), Yejin Joe (MArch ’27), Livia Krohn Miller (MArch ’27), Michael Kurt Mayer (MArch ’27), Suren Sivaram (MArch ’26), Tengxin Sun (MArch ’27), Aries Wang (MArch ’26), Ziyang Xiong (March ’26), Phoebe Yao (MArch ’26), Jesper Zhang (MArch ’26), Wenbo Zhang (MArch ’27).

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