In February 2020, students of the master's programme Interior Architecture INSIDE at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, started working on a project in collaboration with Derviçan, a village located in a rural area in the south of Albania.

After meeting the local community and exploring their customs and the environment of the village, the students collected insights and shaped different topic of interests that they found important for Derviçan. Thanks to the unconditional hospitality of the inhabitants of the village and their openness, they were able to develop their projects.

After the first visit, they were planning to return a second time for a 1:1 scale intervention on site. Unfortunately, due to the spread of COVID-19, it was not possible to travel back to the village. Therefore, they embraced the challenge rethinking their practices and plans responding to the current situation of a global lockdown; some of the students chose to move away from the reality of Derviçan while others maintained it as the proposal's core.

In all the projects the “care” experienced in Derviçan lies beneath the development of each of the projects and is manifested through new connotations.

"This site is our attempt to take care of ourselves, each other, our projects, Derviçan and you."

visit 'withcarefordervican' website