REPUBLISHED

A state secret funded by public money: How was Villa “No. Red” built?

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 19 December 2025

Government Villa “No. 5”, also known as “Villa Number Red”, or “No. Red” for short, was rebuilt through a series of closed procedures, confidential contracts and decisions that remain unclear to the public.

With around €6 million in public funds spent on design, construction and supervision, its reconstruction proceeded without an open competition and without transparency over who was actually responsible for its architectural and artistic design.

Data analysed by Citizens.al show that all the contracts were awarded through negotiation without prior publication, while the winning bids were almost at the maximum budget ceilings.

This combination of closed procedures, rushed deadlines and missing documentation raises serious suspicions of favouritism and misuse of public money.

After Citizens.al brought these matters to its attention, the Supreme State Audit institution (KLSH) responded favourably to including the villa in its 2026 audit plan.

The designer: “Atelier 4”, a contract worth 98.5% of the budget ceiling

State residences are managed by the Directorate of Government Services (DSHQ).

To design the reconstruction of Villa “No. Red”, DSHQ selected and contracted studio “Atelier 4” through negotiation without prior publication.

The contract was signed on 17 November 2022, for 3.9 million lek, 98.5% of the budget ceiling of 3,952,500 lek.

The studio, led principally by Alban Efthimi, had only 45 days to deliver the design.

The contractor: “Ad-Star”, a contract worth 99% of the budget ceiling

Four months after the design contract was signed, on 15 March 2023, DSHQ held the procurement procedure for the construction works, again using closed negotiations.

This procedure allows contracts to be awarded without competition or a prior call. Companies are invited directly by the contracting body. It is permitted in special cases, including emergencies that are unforeseeable and were not caused by the contracting authority. The law requires a documented and verifiable justification for using the procedure.

The company “Ad-Star”, an enterprise of Alfred Çoma, was declared the winner on 3 April and contracted 15 days later. It offered 494.7 million lek, representing 99% of the budget ceiling of 499,696,978 lek.

The construction period was set at just 6 months. But the villa opened two years later, in June 2025. The Prime Minister hosted a reception with private invitations as part of the “Bread & Heart” architecture festival.

DSHQ provided no information on when the works were completed or when it took delivery of the building.

Works supervision: “Dricons”, a contract worth 95% of the budget

The tender for supervising the works was held on the same date as the construction tender, 15 March 2023. Once again, DSHQ used a closed procedure.

The winner, “Dricons”, an enterprise of Vladimir Topi, was contracted on 18 April 2023. Dricons offered 5.6 million lek, 95% of the maximum budget of 5,901,353.33 lek.

Around two months later, in June 2023, Topi was arrested by the Special Prosecution Office, SPAK. He was accused of bribing the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health.

He was suspected of having received favourable treatment in tenders to supervise works at several health centres in Tirana and Durrës.

By August 2023, “Dricons” had changed owners twice for symbolic sums of 100 thousand lek (€1,000). In 2024, the company was transferred into the name of Topi’s wife, again for the same amount.

That year, Topi was sentenced to one year in prison. His case deepens suspicions about the lack of oversight of public contracts, particularly for sites of special importance such as the government residence in question, “Villa Number Red”.

The Supreme State Audit will audit the “secret procedures”

In closed procurement procedures without prior announcements, institutions choose which companies to invite to tender. KLSH has often criticised this practice, which is considered vulnerable to abuse and favouritism.

Under law 162/2020 “On Public Procurement”, closed tenders are used only when open tenders have failed. They are permitted in cases of emergency, security risks, a lack of competition or specific technical reasons.

In any event, documented reasons are required for bypassing open tendering.

In the case of Villa “No. Red”, its reconstruction did not constitute an emergency. Despite repeated requests from Citizens.al, the institutions disclosed no documentation justifying the avoidance of an open tender. On the contrary, DSHQ said it had acted under law 36/2020 “On Procurement in the Fields of Defence and Security”. In other words, not under the ordinary law.

Citizens.al engaged in lengthy correspondence with DSHQ, requesting the justification for the closed procedure and copies of the contracts with the parties involved. But DSHQ insisted, even after the intervention of the Commissioner for the Right to Information, that these were “confidential”.

DSHQ argued that Villa “No. Red” contains elements related to secret information because it serves state purposes. On that basis, it said the procedures and contracts could not even be declassified, as doing so would compromise security.

But the facts show that the villa was used for civilian events with no connection to national security. It hosted the architects attending the “Bread & Heart” festival and the announcement of the Albanian Investment Corporation’s (KISH) calls for the Park of Faith.

Law 36/2020 has been criticised on the grounds that, depending on its interpretation, it could be misused for procurement that is not necessarily military. This was also the argument used by former President Ilir Meta when he returned the law for reconsideration in May 2020.

Citizens.al notified KLSH of this situation. The institution replied that it plans to examine in 2026 the procedures followed by DSHQ. The Directorate appears not to have been audited for such procurement before.

One gift, many questions…

Although DSHQ officially contracted studio “Atelier 4” to design the reconstruction of Villa No. 5, the project has been widely attributed online to the international studio Bofill Taller de Arquitectura (link; link; link).

In an official communication with Citizens.al, Bofill confirmed that it had developed a concept design for Villa 5 and offered it to the Albanian government free of charge, on the studio’s own initiative and without any contractual relationship or public expenditure.

The studio explained that it had been present in Albania since 2021 and had become interested in the villa as an unused government residence left unfinished.

According to the studio, the concept was developed as a creative proposal and handed to the state for free use should the building be reconstructed in the future.

Bofill also emphasised that red is a characteristic element of its architectural philosophy, linked to Mediterranean tradition, and that its use in this villa was “self-evident” in relation to the context and landscape.

However, the studio did not clarify exactly how the concept was delivered to the Albanian institutions, whether it knew that the government subsequently contracted Atelier 4 to design the same building, or whether there had been any communication or coordination between the parties.

Citizens.al’s follow-up questions on these matters went unanswered.

“Atelier 4” stays silent, leaving official roles unclear

Citizens.al repeatedly contacted Atelier 4, both through official emails and directly through one of its shareholders, Andi Eftimi.

We sought comment to clarify Atelier 4’s specific role in the project; whether the architectural or conceptual authorship was its own or subcontracted; whether Bofill’s concept had been used, adapted or referenced; and whether DSHQ had been notified of any possible collaboration.

None of these requests from Citizens.al received a reply.

This lack of transparency leaves fundamental questions open about the actual content of the 3.9 million lek design contract, the architectural decision-making process and the division of professional responsibilities for a government building financed with public funds and treated as a site of special security importance.

Similar uncertainties and relationships outside the public contracts also arise in the artistic interventions in the villa’s interior.

Writing incorporating visual elements was planned for the interior, some of it produced by invited architects during the villa’s official opening at the “Bread & Heart” festival. But the artistic interventions appear to have been carried out outside the announced public contracts.

According to confirmation received from Destil Creative Hub, the centre was contracted privately by the construction company Ad-Star to curate the artistic intervention and engage several artists, including Loumaye Hadrien, Ledia Kostandini and Lib Shkupolli.

Online, Brussels-based artist Val Smets claims authorship of the artistic renderings of Ismail Kadare excerpts on the first-floor walls. She says the work “was commissioned by the Prime Minister” during January and April 2025, and that its theme was requested.

By contrast, Destil told Citizens.al that no theme had been dictated and that the artists worked freely on the walls according to their individual approaches.

This part of the process exposes another grey area: the intertwining of public funds, private contracts and artistic authorship, without clear institutional documentation of roles, limits and responsibilities.