Heritage conservation provides economic, cultural and social benefits to urban communities. The building conservation role has changed from preservation to being part of a broader strategy for urban regeneration process and sustainable development. Heritage buildings are vital in for transferring the cultural identity for upcoming generations. Where heritage buildings can no longer function with its original use, proposing a new function is necessary to preserve the significance of the heritage building. This study aims to explore the fascinating dialogue between totalitarian regimes introduced in two museums adapted within the anti-nuclear bunkers in Tirana. The architectural projects of the museum aim to preserve the identity of their interior. While the careful architectural intervention is necessary to create the atmosphere of totalitarian ideology, in many cases we have to do with the continuity of existing architectural and urban elements in these particular projects. The work explores two museums, BuncArt 1 and BunkArt 2, quite interesting reflection of the parts of history, during the years of world wars and the period of dictatorship of communism, with the facilities and elements exhibited there. In the meantime, thereafter, one can speak of a longer period for the period of the communist regime extending from 1945 to 1990. The impact of communist ideology, coming from the communist bloc of the East, also affects architecture and urban studies in Albania. In some respects, we have a silent follow-up to the monumental interventions that were made before the end of World War II. Another important element was the radical intervention in the bunkers in the territory and in the cities. Their quantity is considered with an amount of 700 thousand pieces. They were different in size and were seen more as defence-related parts rather than as a direct link to the new realist-socialist architecture. The return of some of them to the exhibition space was a good step to revitalize them. Currently they have been transformed into successful tourist attractions. Visitors come to perceive three important elements: (1) attractive military engineering, carried out in contrast to the challenges of the time, (2) the suffocating atmosphere during the communist dictatorship, which required extreme safeguards, (3) elements and historical facts of the World War period, as important elements during the Cold War. An ambitious third project, which is expected to be implemented in the future, is the conversion of the Pashaliman Naval Base in Vlora into another important military museum. This port was originally set up by mid-Fifties, by Russian troops, to have control over the Adriatic. The port is currently part of the military, thought to turn into a strong tourist pole.

The authors of this paper propose a practical way to assess the environmental and financial costs of the performance of a real engineering activity for the case of a dwelling/building. This estimation is based on two indicators: Energy consumption during the Life Cycle of the building, E c LC and Equivalent Uniform Annual Cost, EUAC, related in various ways within the Building Life Cycle. The first indicator is determined by the Material Selection Method (CES Eco-Selector Software). While second indicator, EUAC, is determined by means of the Method of Life Cycle Cost. Consideration of these indicators from the conceptual phase of the object (dwelling), minimizes the costs of implementation and usage of the dwelling while respecting the principles of environment sustainable development. A dwelling as a product may have an environmental label, containing these two environmental and financial indicators, determined to take into account the entire life cycle. Results confirm the validity of some of the most innovative technologies currently applied in buildings and support our proposal on their energy label change.

<p>Albania, the small country in the western Balkan, is a disaster-prone country. It ranks as one of the countries in the world with the highest economic risk from natural hazards events. During the past several decades, in average, Albania has been hit by about one major geological event per year. The impact of disasters in Albania are significantly compounded by a relatively high degree of poverty, lack of infrastructure maintenance, unsafe building and land use practices, linked to rapid urbanization, exploitation of natural resources (overgrazing of pasture, overexploitation of forests and riverbeds, etc.) as well as some other consequences of the transition from a centralized to an open marked economy.</p><p>From a geological point of view, Albania is a young and very dynamic territory and is very vulnerable to the geological and hydro-geological hazards as: earthquakes, landslides, flooding, torrential rains, river erosion, coastal erosion and avalanches that cover almost the entire territory. Due to these conditions its average annual losses count for about 2.5% of its GDP.</p><p>The Durrës earthquakes of 2019 had a huge impact on the Albanian economy. The city of Durrës, Thumanë, Tirana, Vora, Shijak and their villages suffered considerable damage after the earthquakes of September 21<sup>st</sup>, 2019 of Mw 5.4 and November 26<sup>th</sup>, 2019 of Mw 6.2. The main event of the <sup>26th</sup> November caused the deaths of 51 persons and the damaging of hundreds of buildings. The degree of damages produced by these earthquakes has been, in some cases, significantly enhanced by the characteristics of the earthquake ground motion affected by the local subsurface soil structure and the quality of the constructions. The situations during and after the seismic events highlight the indispensable need of the seismic microzonation studies for the entire Albanian territory and emergency plans for the main cities of the country.</p><p>This paper shows the impact of the earthquake event on the housing market value by treating the data collected in the city of Durrës for the period December 2019 - September2020.</p><p>The main goal of the paper is to correlate the obtained results with the engineering-geological and geophysical conditions of the city of Durrёs and the seismic vulnerability of the building.</p><p>The findings of this study can be considered as a first step for in-depth studies aiming to calculate the impact of seismic risk and the change in the risk perception on the housing prices.</p>

Abstract:In the last decade, mass valuation system is applied in Albania in addition to individual valuation system for real estate valuation. This system is used for compiling the land value map and apartments value map. Due to the lack of experience in the compilation of these maps, the methodology of valuation is based on the experiences of other countries with similar development of real estate market. The mass assessment, which is applied in determining the values for specific purposes, such as expropriation, compensation and taxes for property transfer through the methodology adopted for this aim, is analyzed in the light of the finding of issues that accompany this application. The aim of this research is to highlight the problems to provide the ways of overcoming them in order to approximate the values of map values with market values. The mass appraisal process requires effective valuation models and proper management of resources. Its accuracy depends upon the extent and quality of property data available. Because of this reason, it is recommended the usage of the GIS (geographic information system), an automated system for collection and processing of the data necessary for valuation, as the first point of integration between two process of valuation, individual and mass valuation.