Architecture students from Barleti University in Tirana, Albania explore what it means for architecture and life to have “just enough.” Their videos look at spaces, time, and the experiences that fill them, inviting us to pause, reflect, and ask: when is enough truly enough?
Contributors: Ester Hamataj, Majla Cami, Xhesika Nuraj, Arbana Shehu, Arlind Gaxherri
ARLIND GAXHERRI
Fog becomes the main medium of this video. It softens edges, erases boundaries, and creates a condition where nothing is fully defined. Through whiteness and transparency, the video suggests that “just enough” is not about clarity or completeness, but about allowing space for uncertainty. These are the moments where less definition creates more possibility, where atmosphere matters more than form. The absence of strong contrasts allows the viewer to slow down and sense the environment rather than read it.
ARBANA SHEHU
This video explores the idea of “just enough” through acts of deconstruction and destruction of old, beautiful objects. By breaking what is traditionally considered valuable or aesthetically pleasing, the video challenges the assumption that preservation and beauty must always be maintained. In an architectural context, “just enough” becomes an act of subtraction rather than accumulation. The destruction reveals that meaning can emerge through loss, rupture, and transformation.
MAJLA CAMI
The video unfolds through excess. Repetition, accumulation, and saturation become signals of self-destruction rather than desire. In this context, “just enough” is understood only after it has been surpassed. The work reflects on architectural and spatial conditions shaped by overconsumption, where more does not add value, but erodes meaning and balance. Spaces, like bodies, can be overwhelmed. The video suggests that architecture should recognize limits, not as restriction, but as care. “Enough” becomes an act of survival, a conscious decision to stop.
XHESIKA NURAJ
This video uses old clocks showing different times to question the idea of “just enough” in relation to time, architecture, and lived experience. The clocks suggest that time is not universal or fixed, but contextual and subjective, shaped by memory, use, and place. “Just enough” is not about precision or efficiency alone, but about responding to the specific rhythm of a context. The aging clocks symbolize buildings and spaces that carry traces of the past, where imperfection and delay become meaningful. The video implies that architecture does not need to control time, but rather acknowledge it; accepting slowness, layering, and continuity as enough.
ESTER HAMATAJ
This video addresses “just enough” through the lens of dependency and exploitation. By referencing sycophancy and parasitism, it exposes relationships where one presence survives by feeding off another. In architectural and spatial terms, the work questions how much is taken, how much is given, and where the balance breaks. “Just enough” here becomes a fragile threshold, between coexistence and abuse, support and control. The video suggests that when architecture, systems, or users extract more than necessary, space loses its integrity. Enough is no longer about growth, but about ethical limits.
This contribution is part of our ongoing survey “TOO MUCH? What is just enough?” where we collect personal reflections on excess and balance in life, architecture and design. We are gathering diverse, thought-provoking answers that will help shape future discussions and content.
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