Architectural_Portfolio_ Lenia_Steliou

[ ARCHITECTURAL_PORTFOLIO ] Lenia Steliou _ 2017

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ARIS TOTLE UNIV ER SI TY OF THESSA LONIKI | S CHOOL OF ARC HITECTURE ADVANCED DES IGN: INNOVATION AND TRANSDISC IPLINARI TY I N ARCHIT ECTURAL DESI GN POST-GRADUATE PROGRAMM E OF S TUDIES

[ A r ch i t ect u r al _ Po r t f olio ] S E L E CTE D_P ROJ E CTS 2016 -2 017 P OSTGR A DUATE P ROGR A M “A DVA NCE D DE S IGN: INNOVATI ON AND TR A NDIS CIP L INA R IT Y IN A RCHITE CTUR A L DESI GN D E PA RT ME N T OF A RCHITE CTUR E , A R ISTOTL E UNIV E R S IT Y OF THE S SALONI K I

2015-2017 R E S E A RCH AGE NDA “ TR A NS M Y THOLO GI ES” S P YR IDOUL A ST ELI OU

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// Dissertation Thesis Title // Err|or : In [ architectural ] medias res.

Supervisors : Zaroukas M., Papadimitriou S. Student // Steliou L. Academic Year // 2017 Philosophical discourse and action, historically, addresses the relationship between the subject and the object. The current thesis, based on media theorists, such as Alexander R. Galloway, MacKenzie Wark, Eugine Thacker and the philosophical practice of Michel Serres, aims to explore architecture in the light of mediation. In an abstract context of thinking, architecture is defined as the communicational mode among subject and objects. So this research aims to examine the notion of the error during this mode of architectural mediation. In what way does the subject approach the architectural expression, by objects and means? In what way does the subject and media objects, co- notify, co-create and correlate towards the virtual architectural object? How and where error is detected during the architectural mediation? Do errors occur due to the limited subject expressive abilities or, do meas themselves cease to mediate or malfunction? Is it possible to perceive error as a critical [design] tool or moyen, which activates and develops the architectural expression? And finally, how can the modern architectural subject be constructed?

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Το υποκείμενο επικοινωνεί με το αντικείμενο-μέσο και και ταυτόχρονα εκφράζουν το δυνητικό αρχιτεκτονικό αντικείμενο. Το υποκείμενο δεν είναι το Είναι της σχέση και ομοίως και το αντικείμενο. Το Είναι της σχέσης είναι η σχέση καθαυτή. Η σχέση αλλοιωμένη και a priori παρασιτική.Το λάθος, το παράσιτο, το glitch, ο ιός ή ο θόρυβος είναι εκείνες οι συνθήκες οι οποίες προϋποθέτουν την αρχιτεκτονική έκφραση και κατασκευάζουν το δυνητικό αρχιτεκτονικό αντικείμενο. Το δυνητικό αυτό αντικείμενο που πολύ σύντομα καθίσταται ιστορικό και έτσι εμφανίζεται η δεύτερη φύση του κόσμου όπως αυτή ορίζεται από τον McKenzie Wark. Το λάθος προϋποθέτει και συνθηκολογεί την φύση της ιστορίας εν γένει.

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// Thesis Project Title // Thessaloniki’s Soundscape : From Infrastructures to Info-Structures Students // Steliou L. , Damvopoulou A. Academic Year // 2017

Interfaces are back , or perhaps they never left. The familiar Socratic conceit, from The Phaedrus, of communication as the process of writing directly to the soul of the other has, since the 1980’s and 1990’s, returned to the center stage in the discourse around culture and media.

The catoptrics of the society of the spectacle is now the dioptrics of the society of control. Reflective surfaces have been overthrown by transparent thresholds.

Gerard Genette in his book Thresholds calls it “a zone of indecision” between the inside and the outside . It is no longer a question of choice . It is now a question of non choice. The intraface is indecisive for it must always juggle two things [ the edge and the center ] at the same time.

What exactly is the zone of indecision? What two things face off in the intraface? Is it a type of aesthetic that implicitly brings together the edge and the center. The intraface may thus be defined as an internal interface between the edge and the center but one that is now entirely subsumed and contained within the image. This is what constitutes the zone of indecision.

Frames, windows, doors, and other thresholds are those transparent devices that achieve more the less they do: for every moment of virtuosic immersion and connectivity, for every moment of volumetric delivery, of inopacty , the threshold become one notch more more inoperable.

As technology, the more a dioptric device erases the traces of its own functioning (in actually delivering the thing represented beyond), the more it succeeds in its functional mandate; yet this very achievement undercuts the ultimate goal:

Each part of the interface has its role to play. But what else flows from this? The existence of the internal interface within the medium is important because it indicates the implicit presence of the outside within the inside. And, again to be unambiguous “outside” means something quite specific: The Social.

the more intuitive a device becomes, the more it risks falling out of media altogether, becoming as naturalized as air or as common as dirt. To succeed, then, is at best self-deception and at worst self-annihilation.

One must work hard to cast the glow of unwork. Operability engenders inoperability.

Alexander R. Galloway “ The interface efect”, 2012.

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The aim of this diploma thesis is to explore the experience of the subject within the urban fabric, through their sensorium domain. Vision as the main perceptual sensorial state has led the other four to atrophy, especially regarding the perception of the built environment. The sound triggers provided in an urban environment are often underestimated in terms of their value for the construction of the overall experience, and the soundscape is more likely perceived as noise. The goal, through architectural design, is to enhance the overall physical experience as a state of perception of the urban environment of Thessaloniki, with a particular focus on the subject’s senses.

Sound means dissemination of energy and the conversion of energy can produce information. The soundscape in the present condition of the city exists as the indirect result of its urban planning. The present thesis attempts to perceive the soundscape as a different transcript, not as a lack, but as a surplus, that would generate new informational data useful for the subjects. Michel Serres underlines that the noise simply reveals the medium [moyen] or the middle [milieu] which in this case is the intermediate space of the city, the urban context.

Architecture is perceived as communication and sound as information.

This information is intended to be canalized back to the user as a new sensorial expression.

In order to reconstruct the human perception beyond vision, we started our study by focusing on the characteristics of sound and their impact on the subject, such as amplitude and frequency. Also, the way in which the audio message is being transmitted or expressed through a medium plays a key role setting the framework of our work.

This thesis aims at canalizing the multitude of sound, visual and social informational data, onto the urban fabric of Thessaloniki redefining those qualities that already contains, constructing at some level a beneficial condition, through the architectural mode of mediation. This architectural mediation aims to be expressed in a new infrastructural network, a new urban interface or materiality, towards the direction of the non- yet.

The scale of the architectural project is expressed in the spectrum between urban skin and human skin, analyzed into three sub-scales: a. The virtual layer: is organized as an abstract mechanism of collection, organization and re-distribution of information in the form of a virtual cloud within the urban space. b. The spatial layer: an urban interface, an equipment that involves some of the existing urban infrastructure or any visual and audio information emitted within the city, both in its spatial and informative expression, linking them constantly with the cloud of information. c. The skin layer: a wearable device connected to the information mechanism allowing the interaction of cloud and user. The skin operates as the medium for exchange of bi-directional information between the city and the user, helping the latter to navigate himself through the urban space.

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[ Design Process ] The device is composed of 4 layers: The first layer of the base textile, a 3d-printed elasto plastic vest, which acts as the skeleton. The second layer of the mechanical equipment that includes an Arduino Lilypad Board, a battery and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas at the back side, and two Buzzers, two Vibe Boards, a Motion sensor and a Proximity sensor at the front side. The third layer that indicates and encloses the mechanical parts, this of the 3d-printed protective blobs. And the fourth refined layer of fibers, that expresses vividly the sensing output by shaking lightly with the body movement.

The CNC technology allows full customization of the wearable device, so every user could order his device through an online store, with his own unique body proportions. Also a smartphone app, is used to connect each device with the cloud of information, and to upload to the cloud user’s data, as state, interests etc.

[ Fabrication ] The final prototype consists of 28 pieces of 3d printed PLA, using a 3D SYSTEMS Cube Printer, and 9 pieces of laser cut leather, using an Epilog Fusion M2 Laser, in order to lighten the wearable where there was no need of extra support. The pieces were joined with transparent thread.

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// Praxis I _Studio Title // Flood Virtualities Students // Steliou L. ,Iliadi I. Academic Year // 2016_semester a’

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temporal inhabitation units, taking advantage of the multiple forms of energy drawn from the water collectors. These units could set the syntax of an alternative virtual urban expansion.

Our main target of this project is to investigate the dialectic relationship between the urban patch and the river. We tend to create a new ecology which provides a symbiotic relationship between man and nature in the intermediate agricultural space, through the dynamic forces of flood phenomena. In a way, we interpret this middle space as an immanent field, from witch non-predictable, yet controllable, qualities may emerge through the exterior force of flood decongestion as a catalyst.

The interaction of the desiring machine with the site context will create those topological connections of a new ecology and will provide the syntax of our scenario. This syntax is the starting point to set the rules of the architectural spatial expression of the above idea.

By questioning the existing irrigation system, we propose an alternative distributed network of reservoirs and irrigating channels. This system is combined with hydrophilic agriculture, through a complex special expression, where grading levels of hydrophilic agriculture, could periodically function as water collectors during flood decongestion phenomena.

This spatial expression extends the concept of the river-the natural approaching the manmade structures. The reverse force of manmade, urban structure, approaching nature could be expressed by differentiating aggregation of natural units. This units conceived as natural structures, operating as self – sufficient hydroponic units or

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// Praxis II _Studio Title // Istanbul at Threshold Students // Steliou L. ,Iliadi I. Academic Year // 2016_semester b’

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The project takes place in a remarkable region of Istanbul alongside Theodosian Walls, consisting the boundary between the historic core of Istanbul’s peninsula and the modern urban expansion towards west. The extended zone of historical agricultural plots alongside the walls, shaping a fundamental urban green corridor counter to the intense competition for metropolitan space, became the springboard for an alternative narrative about the future identity of the area. On the one side, the vegetable fields sustain productive values charged with local cultural characteristics and on the other side, metropolitan development reflects consumerism models within globalized contexts. So, what if we could approach this condition differently, beyond conflicts, and create a narrative in which new patterns of social interaction may emerge, by redefining, the established models of production – distribution - consumption, especially in reference to a megacity like Istanbul? In a sense, how can we critically invert and leverage global patterns reflected through consumption and waste, as a vehicle for producing and sustaining –cultural, economic, environmental- locality?

The proposal oscillating between nature and artifice, globality and locality, realism and utopia, narrates an urban future actualized by a complex ecology, equally composed by human, environmental, material and immaterial forces. Our design “mechanism”, triggered by the latent dynamism of the area, is spatially expressed as a dense forest of vertical elements, creating an hybrid infrastructure programmatically embedded in a feedback schema with the fields: farmers sell directly their products in vegetable markets, while the waste produced on the site – including non sold or no longer fresh vegetables – is stored and managed through composting processes in experimental labs, so that it can be reintroduced as fertilizers to a new cycle of production. On the one side, the “forest” as a flexible structure creates inner enclaves accommodating market places, areas of social interaction, elevated labs and public awareness spaces, while, on the other side, it acts as collector and distributor of energy via the integration of rainwater (water pipes) and solar energy (optical fibers) collection systems. In addition to this infrastructure, distortions related to the ground morphology, expressed as cavities accommodating auxiliary spaces, water reservoirs or waste tanks, redefine the landscape and emphasize the role of composting labs as emerging bulbs preparing the soil for new events to come.

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This workshop operates within ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art). It attempts to postulate a singular moment within the infinite momentum of the urban grid and will engage in intense research into typologies of Event and Excess. Architectural Form has the possibility of creating disruption and resistance to the potentially infinite nature of urbanization. These architectural events within the infinite liquidity of the city are constellations of finite parts that create opposition through borders. This would suggest moments of singularities that both reflect and speculate on new ontologies. Pier Vittorio Aureli, considers architectural form as a potential access into the project of the city, and claims that architecture is not only a physical form; rather it is also what preserves the idea of the city. Computational creations and specifically algorithmic architecture require a new ethics towards the work. While designing a system and a field of results instead of a single entity, it becomes a combinatory problematic on a meta-level: which processes are compatible to be codified together? How to orchestrate highly expressive phase spaces?

Which abstract logics of self-replication are capable of infinite amounts of difference? The success of this speculative and open-ended research is measured in the expressivity and pluralism of the phase spaces they produce as well as their architectural translatability. The results fold onto the next projects both by the means of exhaustive catalogs and in the creation of multi-authored and open source computational libraries. These ‘languages’, as they escape the digital inscription to include other artifacts, sometimes notational and other physical and material, are always-already multiple, collective and non-linear.

// Techne_I _Project Title // Apomechanes 2016_ Aixoni’s Soundscapes Supervisor // Blasetti E, Willems D. Students // Steliou L. ,Iliadi I., Vasilatou B., He M. Academic Year // 2016_semester b’

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// Fab Fest ‘17 Title // Pop Up City_ Node II Supervisors// Vergopoulos S. , Gourdoukis D. Students // Steliou L. ,Damvopoulou A., Arampatzoglou A. Chinis I., Ravanidou N. Academic Year // 2017_semester d’

The main aspiration of the pavillion is focused on the synthesis of a structure in which form, shape, assembly and static performativity coexist and interact all together as a whole system.

The form follows an ellipsoid volume, sliced in places for the base to be created. Emphasis is also given in the way in which the desirable integrity of the whole structure could be achieved with the use of recurrent components. The structural system of the pavillion consists of: a // panels with four notches on each one, through which they are attached to the four neighbor pieces, creating interweaving planar frames and, b // perforated planar caps that lock up on the frames, securing the stability and the curvature of the pavillion.

The challenge of this specific structure was to be able to be successfully implemented onto the curved shape, ensuring not only the accuracy of the curvature but also the firmness of the pavillion. In terms of aesthetics of the produced space, differentiation on the panels’ size and caps’ perforation lead to an effect of attenuation towards the top of the pavillion, having a more playful alteration of light and shadow, as well [ 24 ] as visual effect.

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[ ADVANCED DESIGN : INNOVATION AND TRANSDISCIPLINARITY IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN ]

[ THESSALONIKI 2017 ]