Chrysanthi N. Vathi
academic project | collaboration | design thesis project
desing thesis project
Managing Madness
Klafthmonos Square: an exit to the city
Athens today experiencing a long constant crisis, which is more apparent in the center of the city and specific at the Historic center. The term constant crisis is used to describe a phenomenon in which individual events deregulates, the city became a systematic feature losing eventually their sense of startle. Such events begin to assimilate from the society, and the everyday life returns to normal. Such incidents might be demonstrations, concerts, lectures, and other facts that can cause several imprints in the city, such as closed roads, change of traffic routine, or closed metro stations. Although all this facts are incidents repeated, there is always the imponderable factor in the unfolding events that might lead even to the destruction of public property or the death of a person. Trying to understand the deeper forces of these changes in the city, we come to the conclusion that it is the people as a whole that change the facts. As a mass in movement or as a static mass, even as dissociative parts people form a mutating volume that occupies space.
Published www.great2013.com/ oi-simmetoxes-tougreat-2013/ Supervisor P. Babasikas [babasikas@gmail. com] TEAM Dimitra Bra
7
academic project | collaboration | proposal | conceptual drawing
academic project | collaboration | proposal | conceptual drawing
9
academic project | collaboration | analysis| surrounding area
Taking a closer look at the areas these events take place we can see that the main square of the historic center are the concentration point where the most of the static incidents happen, although in everyday life they are a passage, and the street that connect them are the fields that the mass flows. Klafthomonos Square is the only one that people do not use. The follow flows around the square and use mostly the upper part that has bus stations and it’s the connection to Korai passage where the exit of Panepistimio metro station is. This is the point that we choose to transform into an integration point, a decongestion point, a urban shelter in the city.
academic project | collaboration | analysis| surrounding area
11
this page: diagram of the movements and concentration of people in different occasions at the five basic square of the historical center. opposite page: quantitative diagrams of social and economic conditions in the historical center.
academic project | collaboration | analysis| Klafthmonos Sq.-Korai Str,-Propulai area
Focusing at the square and exploring the area, there are several urban tracings to bring on surface. These traces are the basic movements of the people, the intelligible connection axis from Propulaia to Korai and then to Klaftmonos square, which is parallel to the underground movement of the metro and its extention in the square. There is also the trace of the Athenian Wall and archeological pieces found on the area and in the underground parking Klftmonos square has.
A crucial parameter in the way the events evolve is the cyber space. The digital information channels and the social networks become a driving force. Meeting and protesting are organized through those networks. When incidents take place there is a tremendous number of posts in the internet about it. There are also live streaming applications that cover the facts. The cyber space will be a basic designing parameter. It is an integral part of today’s society and everyday life.
academic project | collaboration | analysis| Klafthmonos Sq.-Korai Str,-Propulai area
13
That constant crisis Athens leaves in results mostly in the economy. In the research area more that 50% of the stores have closed and more that 30% of them are now abandoned. One of the major goals of suggestion is to bring into life these stores and also to strengthen the competitiveness of the area. We aim to give the management of small store on and around the square the area back to citizens in order to allow anyone occasional to offer whatever he has without managing the rents.
On our focusing parameter a basic one is the green areas of the square and the meaning of then for the city. Athens is a city that struggles to find some open green areas but Klafthmonos square planting drives the citizen away. It is the home of homeless people and drug addicts. What we want to offer is that any can use and enjoy this area without being scared or prevented. The redistribution of planting in a more hospitable way will transform the area to a welcoming landscape.
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan
15
We create a digital imprint app with live streaming capability causing interactive changes at the real space. We decide to use the web to create another dimension of public space: a digital square that exist on the net, collects information from users and alerts or redefines the real square, reforming the urban space of Klafthmonos Square. The virtual and real fields are interconnected and produce feedback to one another. Working between parallel projections of the urban landscape, we create a Hybrid public space, one that self feeds and adsorbs damage, re emitting it as collective information.
academic project | collaboration | proposal | section A-A’
academic project | collaboration | proposal | section B-B’
17
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan
A
B
B’
A’
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan
A
19
B
B’
A’
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan | details
academic project | collaboration | proposal | organizational plan | details
21
academic project | collaboration | proposal | model
academic project | collaboration | proposal | omodel
23
academic project | collaboration | proposal | views
academic project | collaboration | proposal | views
25
academic project | collaboration | proposal | view
end of project X
academic project | collaboration | research thesis project
research thesis project
izmir, new york, athens, tokyo:
mapping destruction in networked cities The contemporary city is defined by the full interconnection and communication among others, shrinking distances and homogenizing the special characteristics that define the particular identity of each one that belongs to the interconnected grid. Cities expand beyond geographical borders and eventually become hub points dispersed in the global grid of capital and transaction.
resilience of a city, defines collective memory and generally consists of an integral part of the nature and history of cities.
This practically alternates the meaning of place, as it no longer lies on its spatial dimensions but on the effect of time: this which Castells calls space of flows and James Corner milieu.
Mapping is conscripted as a basic means of the city imprint, in order for these case studies to be analyzed.
The network becomes a basic means for communication between people, transaction of goods and mostly spread of information. The structure of the global city is based on networks thus its viability depends on them. If one or more connections between the city hubs breaks, as respectively would happen on a computer network, the urban system passes through multiplied disturbances from an equilibrium to another. This procedure is called catastrophe. The ability to resist, absorb and adapt to these disturbances is crucial for the
These theories are being tested in four case studies: Four time captures of a disaster in a Mediterranean metropolis and three global cities, infiltrate them and produce results. Smyrna, New York, Athens, Tokyo transform into information.
Four dynamic mapping techniquesdrift, layering, gameboard, rhizomeproduce four maps through which we attempt to collect results related to the disasters, decisions and actions and alterations of the urban field, therotically based on the catastrophe theory and on a theory for the morphogenesis of the landscape.
Exhibited 1st Architecture biennale Thesaaloniki 2012 ‘Architecture and the city in SE Europe’ Supervisor P. Babasikas [babasikas@gmail. com] TEAM Dimitra Bra
27
academic project | collaboration | extracted pages from the booklet
academic project | collaboration | extracted pages from the booklet
29
academic project | collaboration | research thesis project | maps & mapping techniques
end of project X
Drift* | Izmir
Rhizome* | Tokyo
Game board* | Atthens
Layering* | New York
An attempt to return the map to everyday life and to the unexplored, repressed topographies of the city. The practices of “drift” use maps as instruments for establishing and align otherwise disparate repressed or unavailable topographies; they are ‘set-ups’ that both derive from and precipitate a series of interactive and participatory acts. Openly cognitive, mental maps, rendering new images of space and relationship.
Unlike trees and their roots the rhizome connects any point to any other point. It has neither begging nor end, but always a middle from which it grows and overspills constituting linear multiplicities. It contrast to centric or tree like, hierarchical systems, the rhizome is acentred, non-hierarchical and continually expanding across multiplicitous terrains. ‘Rats are rhizomes. Burrows too, in all of their functions of shelter, supply, movement, evasion and breakout’.
Shared working surfaces upon which various competing constituencies are invited to meet. As a representation of contested territory, this procedure assumes an enabling or facilitating statues for otherwise adversarial groups to try and find common ground while ‘playing out’ various scenarios. Allows the personal engagement between mapper and constituents, while latter permits that analytical separation of multiple issues and agendas.
A superimposition of various independent layers one upon the other to produce a heterogeneous and ‘thickened’ surface. Unlike to a traditional plan, the layered organizational field systems remains open to any number of interpretations, uses and transformations in time. Extend the formation of the design itself, analytically transforming the originating referents into new figures and coordinates. * James Corner ‘Agency of Mapping’
competition | 1st prize | collaboration Exhibited French Institute Athens Jun-Sep 2011
1st prize Antonis Tritsi’s Park Competition
Ne[s]tpark In a joint initiative members of EUNIC Greece , the British counsil, the Goethe Institut and the Institut Francais, the Hellenic Ornithological Society, with the School of Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and ECOWEEK run in partnership “The Landscape and Environment Project”, an innovative environmental project aimed at raising awareness on the principles of ecology and the effects of climate change. Environmental Awareness Park ‘Antonis Tritsis’ is located in the western part of Athens and especially valuable for the residential fabric of the entire Attica. With total area of approximately 1,200 acres is the largest organized green park in Athens and one of the last refugees of wildlife in the Athenian urban environment. The existence of the liquid component in a large area of the Park, both in the form of six artificial lakes and an artificial canal, is the predominant element of the landscape. As the wetlands of Attica are shrinking the last years, the lakes of the Park have attracted various species of birds, while the deciduous and coniferous trees, the reedbeds and agricultural cultivations are creating the habitat for various animal species. this a truly rare treasure of natural beauty.
Pudlished GRA Review is 01 ‘Kathimenini’ news ‘To Vima’ news Organization British council Goethe Institut Institut Francais Hellenic Ornithological Society TEAM Dimitra Bra Niki Kakali Dimitra Papageorgiou
33
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal | conceptual drawings
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal | conceptual drawings
35
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | analysis
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal
37
Info Stele
Human Nest
Hydrological Units
A major problem of the park is the insufficient signage of the entrances. Ne[s]tpark proposal suggests placing Info steles at the five entrances of the park. These Info steles are lighting points that collect light from the sun during the day and use it to lighting up during the night. They are big enough for anyone to see in a distance. They become landmarks of the park in order to help the visitor find his way in an out of the park. They also provide information for the park and further for the position of the birds according to the season, time and date, by a screen. if the visitor wants so, they are able of printing a map on recycled paper to help him find his way or as a souvenir from the park.
To help the observation of the birds during their immigration journey inside the park all over the year, small human nest are placed at the concentration points. Visitors can observe the birds safely for both of them, without leaving any garbage or ruining the rest of the area.
The park is a multi-conceptual territory, a disparate landscape.
These nests are composed from lightweight materials so they can be easily placed and then taken to another point. Some of these nests are left behind to interact with the nature, and eventually become part of the park. These human nest are a clue on the place another season were birds might be.
We create a decontamination system. Small basin models, similar to the existent biotopes, enrich the facilities of the park as the can be used as crops that can be managed by the citizens. They change during the year and they transform the landscape of the park as well. They, also, have a specific water collecting system contributing to a fertile soil condition. The result is the formation of active social and cultural fields throughout the park.
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal | view
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal | view
39
competition | 1st prize | collaboration | proposal | view
end of project X
competition | 40/480 | collaboration | analysis Organization Regione Calabria town planning Territorial Governance Department.
top 40/480
parco sollare south
Future Archeology
TEAM Drifting city [P. Babasikas, Ch. Voulgari, Farzad A.] driftingcity.com Dimitra Bra Dora Moudatsou Dimitra Papageorgiou
international competition
41
The Regione Calabria Town planning and Territorial Governance Department promoted an online international competition for Solar Park South. Solar Park South Works – Solar Highway – carried out by re-using Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway sections between Scilla and Bagnara to be decommissioned by the Italian Highways Authority. The Future Archeology proposal provided a design solution in relation to both the values of the local landscape and the application and enhancement of renewable energies, investigating and studying the culture of sustainability.
The Future Archeology proposal was divided in several phases from the design to the construction. Those phases where organized into two basic sections: the MONUMENT TO BE phase and the GENERATIVE MATRIX phase. The first section combine the investigation and studding of the landscape an also the design of the proposals on the Highway. The second phase is about the construction of the proposal in the time and the hierarchy on construction engaged to the needs of the area and the sources available.
competition | 40/480 | collaboration | analysis
Monument to be The emblematic highway is disconnected from Calabria’s local scale and coast. The project brings into it local structures, organizations and flows. It draws the surrounding territory from the point of view of the highway, using infrastructure as its projective lens and datum. PSS becomes a function of time. Highway sections are seen as rhythmic montage passages —6 territorial over 3 base sequences—fast and slow. A linear, expanded map of the highway frames this montage on the landscape. It quantifies view/visibility, solar exposure, productive/open/vague terrains, connections, distance, road/ ground. Local flows are drawn by the map. The proposals are about 12 point/ diffuse interventions that transform the highway territory into an abstract object/field, devoid of meaning/function. No longer an operating highway but a worksite, vacant area, weathered ruin, open opportunity. These operations produce a Future Archaeology.
competition | 40/480 | collaboration | proposal
Generative Matrix The site opens to intervention: communities/visitors claim structures/ areas as their own. New uses are applied on the Future Archaeology along the Expanded Map via local Flow Structures. The result is a quantifiable program matrix of possible design hybrids, organizing Tourism, Culture/Research, Energy Flow and Local Access into Parco Solare Sud. The park operates in time—slow, fast, wondering—on multi-vehicle, cable car, walking, water and energy routes. It is entirely sustainable —no materials leave the site; labor is local; growth occurs in fertilized, reservoir, vertical zones next to naturecorridors; capital is generated by local markets/ services to visitors; energy produced by on-site waste management, vehicle motion, cross-site solar slopes and water. The multi-phased—Survey-PreparationConstruction—quantifiable Matrix of less master plan, more systematic method is economically sustainable.
43
competition | 40/480 | collaboration | proposal | view
end of project X
competition | collaboration | proposal
Piraeus Cultural Coast Competition In collaboration with AREATM Architects & Thanasis Polyzoidis
PLINTHOS
Organization Piraeus Cultural Coast www.piraeusculturalcoast.org.gr TEAM AREA TM Architects [S. Daouti, G. Mitroulias, Mj. Raftopoulos] www.areaoffice.gr & Thanasis Polyzoidis
9999FF8800
The aim of the proposal is to create a unified urban ensemble, where building, landscape and archaeological site function together as a whole, integrated into the life of the city and the port. A park, an archaeological courtyard and an urban square develop along thru-axis/ promenades from East and North-South direction connect the residential area with the Museum and the coastline. At the intersection of these paths arises the main entrance to the New Thematic Archaeological Museum, redesigned as an elegant Landmark. The proposal aims at the creation of a bioclimatic whole that is characterized by fluidity and coherence, utilizes the dynamics of the site as a powerful viewing point, gives emphasis to vegetation and is consistent with the spirit of the archaeological site.
45
competition | collaboration | view of the proposal
competition | collaboration | view of the proposal
competition | collaboration | view of the proposal
workshop | collaboration | analysis Exhibited Hydra Historical Archives Museum Jul-Sep 2011
hydra | dokos islands
11th Plateau perceptual ecologies & territorial assemblages
Organization Out of the Box Intermedia Under the auspices of Britsh Counsil Curator Petros Babasikas TEAM students of Architecture School of Patra
51
The project Eleventh Plateau examines a meticulous kind of compositional practice in which the machinery of nature and the art machinery become one, in eleven different “sites-terrains� in the island of Hydra and Dokos (Ancient Aperopia).
Eleventh Plateau operates between the realities and the different layers of the island: the archeological past, the contemporary economic culture, the excluded and the popular.
The project engages meditation on landscape, zoology (animal/human With the collaboration of artists, archi- interrelations), land art and shifts in tects, environmentalists, archeologists the representation of nature. and the community, an interdisciplinary practice and discourse on the subject of eco-aesthetics, ecosystems, landscape reconstruction and its meaning for traditional cultural heritage will be initiated.
workshop | collaboration | analysis | examnles of seaside pressure landscapes
workshop | collaboration | proposal | kit of parts
Multiple Assemblies These assemblies, both objects and fields, are made up of different parts, temporarily deployed onto specific coastal areas of the Saronic and Cycladic Archipelago. A catalogue of temporary interventions is then applied on the map of these territories. Brought in from the water directly to their site, the kits of parts of these interventions are put together at the fluid zone between land and sea. They may attract, accommodate, exchange, produce or activate people and flows. Modular and collage-prone interventions, they operate as machines, machine-fields or simple fields. Touching and re-forming a territory in calculated ways, they may simultaneously rejuvenate, reorganize, collect and cultivate it. If removed, they leave behind them a significant trace. If forgotten, they degrade and become embedded in the future archaeology of the coast. The workshop team from Patras University will work in Hydra using it both as a case study and an intervention site, inspired by its unique infrastructure, ecology and territory (its low-pressure landscapes), but also looking to intervene in a higher-pressure zone. The team will research and elaborate the aforementioned survey methods, catalogue and kit of parts, and attempt to create physical models-to-bedeployed on the island.
53
workshop | collaboration | proposal | examples of assemblies
Hydro Garden
Illuminati Cylinders
Collecting Umbrellas
Different materials are combined to produce those gardens. On a plain base several layers of wire, reed mat, compost and aquatic plants create an eco system which reduces the sea pollution.
Since the island is organized in one settlement, large sections of it are in lack of water and electricity, with no streets or any villages around. The paths used by humans become hostile during the winter months, when the sun sets early.
In ancient times the island of Hydra was known as Hydrea, derived from the Greek word for “water�, which was a reference to the island’s springs. However nowadays it is almost dry. Therefore Athens supplies Hydra with water which is then stored in tanks.. The cost is very high and the danger of the island being left without water is very likely.
The plants filter the water and absorb contaminants. The gardens combined to some bridges create also platforms that can accommodate humans to a in an aquatic environment. They are spread along the coastline and can be used for the embellishment of the port.
Concrete cylinders covered with led create a lighting spot that functions as a land beacon. The leds use sunlight to operate since they are able to emit Wave breakers combined with umbrellight as well as absorb the sunlight. las were used in order to create water storage. These storages can be placed They become a shelter in rainy days or all over the island and they can prothey can be used as storage for water vide water for the animals, for plantand first need equipment. ing or further uses.
workshop | collaboration | proposal | examples of assemblies
55
Emergency Nests
Fishing Bins
Popping Poles
Hydra is residential organized on only one point of the island and offers several walking paths for exploring. This means that in order to meet some culture points one needs to travel long distances. The same happens in most of the islands at their unorganized parts.
Most of an island’s rivers lead to the sea even in dry islands. We often come across stagnant sea water near the coast and beaches.
Although a great amount of the accessible beaches on an island are organized with umbrellas and a canteen where the guests can be protected and rest from the strong summer sun, several distances on most of the dry islands offer no shading points.
Placing small emergency nests near the walking paths, we ensure that first aid needs can be covered. It also provides a place to rest. The medical associations and citizens of the island ensure to have an eye on the nests in order to be prepared on any time of need.
These points usually concentrate trash from unwary visitors or citizens. By the logic of fishing nets, depending on the depth of each point, small makeshift structures are placed to protect the seas and coasts form garbage, even in places that are not covered by trash bins.
Inside of suitably constructed pipes, an umbrella is placed. These pipes act as protective boxes into which the umbrellas are protected from the strong winds that usually blow in the islands. These popping pipes are colored so they can be easily perceived.
workshop | team work | proposal | view
end of project X
installation | professional experience | Drifting City Architects associate Presented Second Green Design Festival, Sep-Oct 2010 Syntagma square, Athens Office Drifting City [P. Babasikas, Ch. Voulgari, Farzad A.] www.driftingcity.com
Drip
Other associates Dimitra Bra Kassy Leontiadou
a vertical garden in outdoor exhibition area a public space installation 59 Drip is a public space installation which was exhibited in Syntagma square in Athens, as part of the Green Design Festival in 2010. Drip juxtaposes the organic and the inorganic as upward and downward flows in time, triggered by atmosphere and gravity in a 2.5x2.5m vertical garden. Drip consists of a large volume of salt held 3m above a planter. 9 cables stretch in-between. As water drips over the planter through special orifices, salt crystallizes downward forming 9 stalactites over the planter. Creeper plants grow upward from the planter. Stalactites and plants bond together in time. Drip keeps transforming under the refracted light of the suspended saltvolume. It works like an urban hourglass, changing in time, physically and locally responding to a global phenomenon, aiming to redefine climate change as a hybrid, transitory stage also known as “Salt of the Earth.�
installation | professional experience | at Syntagma Square by Drifting City Architects
end of project X
interior design | professional experience | individual work | at Gytheion, Greece
Tax Consulting & Shipping Agency
K|K oFFice Gytheion, Greece
Location Gytheion, Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece Program Tax Consulting & Shipping Agency Office Builed Area 55 m2 STATUS Work in progress
61 KK Tax consulting and shipping agency office provides a comfort and productive environment, transforming a trapezium space in to a two-division office space. Hosting two different programs in the same interior raises the need of managing the space as two interconnected volumes that can be isolated or communicating simultaneously. A transparent partition becomes the separating element, allowing direct communication when it is open (one of the parts moves towards the other) and indirect eye contact when it is closed. In this office the users will spend most of their time, as part of everyday routine. Attempting to implement needs to design and then into a reality, a diversified and intimated space is created to complement its users.
interior design | professional experience | individual work | at Gytheion, Greece
end of project X
* note The projects included in this portfolio are the result of personal or team work and they refered at the top of the page as so, with additional informations on the projects. Apart from Solar Park competition and Drip installation, where i participated as an assistant architect, in the other projects all the members of the team had equal roles.
eton * ni dedulcni stcejorp ehT tluser eht era oiloftrop siht krow maet ro lanosrep fo eht ta derefer yeht dna htiw ,os sa egap eht fo pot no snoitamrofni lanoitidda morf trapA .stcejorp eht dna noititepmoc kraP raloS i erehw ,noitallatsni pirD -tsissa na sa detapicitrap rehto eht ni ,tcetihcra tna fo srebmem eht lla stcejorp .selor lauqe dah maet eht
* note My name is Chrysanthi Vathi. I am an architect seeking new experiences through art and engineering. My passion for architecture as the urban expression of intimacy of space and the formations rising from architecture as equilibrium between a machinery art and a crafted result, feeds the passion for producing a strong fetching image, either as an architectural design or as illustration. The visual representation as a transmitting mean of an idea is for me the motivating force behind a great creation, on paper or in reality. In the end are the formations of change that embrace the capacity of innovation.