Public spaces

Multi puropse building in Paleochora Crete

The building is placed at the “back side” of the site, leaving space for a public square. The two multipurpose halls are located in different levels. Between these halls and the square a multilevel foyer contains horizontal and vertical circulation and thus connects the spaces visually and spacially. This space also acts as a “buffer” zone between the events and the square. The ground floor hall can be united with the square via folding glass doors. The building’s form is simple in order to unite the city’s morphological polyphony. It doesn’t impose itself but rather serves the city’s functions by standing discretely in the background.

 

Read More »

Selling bench for Chania open market

Chania municipality assigned the Technical University of Crete – School of Architecture  Rapid Prototyping  laboratory  to conduct research on the design of  a bench for its flea market, a food and goods street market that takes place in a different spot of the city almost every day of the week. The goal is to make a unified design that has to be light, transportable, easy to set up and dismantle by one person, and able to carry up to 1 tn weight of merchandize.  It also has to serve the needs of both producers and merchands, two different categories of sellers, which have different footiprints (2×3 and 2,5 x6 m. respectively). It has to provide shade and rain protection, and to withstand wind loads of about 6bfts.

The bench is a “kit of parts”  made from aluminum in order to be light. It has the possibility to expand by addition. It also presents a variability both in height and  front – back  sun protection position.

A full scale prototype was built and tested. After this prototype more benches will be built and tested in real conditions before the product goes into production.

Read More »

Art School in Florina

The proposed building is an open and hospitable structure conceived as an extension of the campus’s public space. It is designed to enhance interaction and communication between students, teachers and visitors. It is also designed as a sculpture that allows both the creation and exhibition of art, facilitating serving and helping the creative process , offering multiple places where art can be exhibited discussed and created. The new art school is an “equal” but distinct presence within the campus one that does not overshadow the industrial buildings surrounding it. It completes the existing campus by creating new intermediate spaces between new and existing buildings, places that generate a multitude of frames towards the landscape mountain and plane and also a multitude of open spaces able to host different activities.

 

Read More »

Kindergarten, Elderly Daycare Centre and Neighborhood park in Chania, Crete

The proposal places the elderly day care centre and its garden on an artificial level on top of the kindergarten. This gesture multiplies the open green spaces of the plot. A circular hole on this artificial level allows for controlled communication and access between elderly and kids. The proposal’s public space is composed by a square park, a small entrance square and a  pedestrian road enclosing the totality of  the program. On the aesthetic level the project is a fusion  of the archetypical house and the wooden abstract Bauhaus toys. Various gardens and trees unite all ages in a stimulating and activity provoking environment.     

Read More »

Urban weaving around Patras new Archaeological museum

The problem, consists in weaving  5 hetrogenous urban elements around Patras new archaeological museum and the national road: an important Roman bridge, a Neoclassical garden from the 1860 ‘s  a small yet importan river, an agrarian institute’s garden and a school complex. The approach was a realistic one. 5 new localities are added: the underground circle that provides view to the Roman bridge,  a new square  along the narional road, a park – entrance in the center of the intervention, a new water reservoir and a park next to the agrarian institute. These new localities are connected to the existing ones (museum, neoclassical garden, agrarian institute, river) and the whole is locally attached to the surroundings.

Concept

Read More »

Rehabilitation of hydroelectric plant and landscape around Agyia artificial lake

Agyia artificial lake together with the small power plant is a project inaugurated by Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos in 1928. The 0,30MW plant was operational until 2005. For the landscape and its organic connection to the building, natural materials fitting with the sensitive ecosystem of the area were mosntly used: earth and treated timber. The building’s modern architectural vocabulary was left untouched. Its new function as an exhibition space for renewable energy systems incoroporates the building itself as an 1:1 scale experience of hydroelectric energy production. Steel and concrete bases were designed for the exhibits and a 1:100 scale model is used to dislpay the water circulation from the penstock to the elevated tank, the turbines and eventually the escape canal. The retaining wall surrounding the pilotis that supports the water tank are connected so as to generate a continuous line on wich most of the exhibition panels are located.

 

Concept

Read More »

Katehaki square, Chania

Intent of this proposal is to provide the city with an open, hospitable and flexible public space, one that serves contemporary civic uses and highlights  the extremely complex historical context of the city. Due to the location’s strong historical character, the proposal consists of few and discreet interventions: a. The creation of four “slits” through which four distinct and clearly articulated spaces are formed in the intervention area. These slits are materialized by means of steps that both provide access and differentiate space both qualitatively and functionally. b. The installation of 7 steel posts – references to the adjacent sail masts, on top of the foundations of the masonry walls of the demolished Venetian shipyards . The significance and functional importance of these posts  is two – fold: they signify and partially reconstruct the coastal front of the Venetian harbor and at the same time bear the square’s necessary infrastructure such as lights and shading.

Most events are expected to take place in the horizontal square space between the Mediterranean Architecture Center and the new municipal theater (former customs building). This space’s polyvalence is ensured by the layout  of  its boundaries: permeable boundaries created  by means of tree clusters, shading and steps, become the hosts of seating and standing  spaces of various qualities.

Concept

Read More »

Town Hall of Arkalohori, Heraklion

A Town Hall’s particularity comes from its double nature: it is a functional public space, where, on the one hand the municipality’s most important decisions are taken in representational or direct manner and on the other it serves and informs the citizen on different possibilities and actions on the local level. It is therefore a building with public character which incorporates the first level of a participatory democratic process. Therefore, the Town Hall has a clearly defined functional character but also a particular symbolic character as it is the most important reference for the local community and its evolution.

In the present case, the building’s urban role is not to complete a void within the existing urban tissue, but to become a core of development for the city and an example for further architectural interventions. That goes not just for the building itself, but also for its open space, which, by expanding the building’s internal functions acquires the same symbolic and functional importance as the building itself.

Therefore the Town Hall should be an easily recognizable public building, particularly functional and pleasant for staff and visitors alike, open towards the citizens, who should be able to use it in the most accessible manner, either as a citizens who participate in the decision making processes, either as visitors who accomplish an ordinary task, or as simple passers-by. The Town Hall as functional and architectural reference point has to have a subtle monumental character adjusted to the local particularities,   to express those, as well as the place’s origins and dynamics. It cannot be a boring office space, nor can it be left to pointless and ephemeral formalism. At the same time, it should absorb and summarize the culture and history of the city, without reverting to picturesque loans. It should be an attractor offering the most possibilities for the municipality’s creative development.

Concept

Read More »