MARIA SKORDOULI urbanism & architecture portfolio of selected academic projects 2019
01 Interweaving Fragmented Landscapes: Strategies to adapt to consequences of climate change and post-industrial transformation, Tympaki Greece
02 City University // University City: Rethinking the Campus-City, Leuven Belgium
03 Diversifying for Resilience: Guayas River Basin Ecuador
04 Urban Redefinitions: Requalification of Lakkos neighbourhood in the historical center of Heraklion Greece
05 Inside Out the Venetian Moat: Weaving in the (extra)ordinary, Chania Greece
06 The City as a Carpet, Brussels, North Quarter Belgium
07 Urban Carcasses Decomposed: Tracing Brussels’ vacancy from the Brouckère up to Chaussée d’Anvers Belgium
URBANISM & LANDSCAPE
ARCHITECTURE & URBAN DESIGN
CONCEPT & ANALYSIS
INTERWEAVING FRAGMENTED LANDSCAPES Strategies to adapt to consequences of climate change and post-industrial transformation
Tympaki, Crete, Greece Master of Urbanism and Strategic Planning Master Thesis, KU Leuven 2018-2019
01 Years of intensified uses, urbanized agriculture and mass touristic expansion have drastically altered the Cretan landscape. The excessive misuse of the Valley of Messara and the disruption of its water bodies jeopardize the natural resources questioning the carrying capacity of the island and the limits to growth. This raises the discussion about not building stronger, bigger, harder, but building wiser and more strategically. Since, the Cretan agricultural economy is already affected by shifts in meteorological patterns and extreme phenomena, climate change could open a fruitful dialogue about alternative ways of urbanizing creating a more dynamic balance between our cities and our nature. The design proposal attempts to tackle the challenges caused by the fragmentation of the rivervalley system, the pressures of climate change and post-industrial transformation by strengthening the underlying relations of water and landscape structures in a bigger scale.
2nd PRIZE AWARD DAIDA Foundation, The Netherlands “Improving the infrastructure and urban environment for the under-priviledged part of the society�
From the Bronze Age to Global Economies: A Palimpsest Scales - Occupations - Typologies
Settlement organised along the main road axis
Greenhouses following the landscape
Agricultural fields
Minoan Ancient settlements (2700-1100 B.C)
Structured greenhouses pattern in agricultural plots
Reservoir of Faneromeni
(Un) Seen Pathogenies
Disrupted ecologies - Climate change pressures
Reservoir blocking the enrichment of river
Saline intrusion level
Greenhouses pollution
Faults
Impervious surfaces in settlements
Asphalted roads
Pumping underground water
Sea level rise +2m by 2100
Addressing current and future challenges Main natural and anthropogenic issues
1942
2019
1960
DAY ZERO
Give space to water
Living on safer ground
Reconnecting the valley
preparing for climate change and extreme phenomena
strategic densification and new economies
creating a continuous productiveurban landscape and braiding the historical layers
TYMPAKI 2100 envisioning a resilient future
At the water’s edge The connection with the sea is re-established creating a new coast protected from strong winds and sea level rise. Strategic densification is proposed on higher ground served by cable car to preserve the agricultural fields.
UNIVERSITY CITY CITY UNIVERSITY Rethinking the Campus-City
Leuven, Belgium Urbanism Studio, KU Leuven Collaborators: Studio Team 2018-2019
02 The design research tests the possibilities of radical repositioning of the relations between the university and the city at a moment of high development pressure. The design fundamentally questions the 1960s Leuven Campus model that has created a mono-functional and exclusionary enclave. By acknowledging contemporary models of high intertwinement between universities and cities, our studio’s hypothesis is that sterile campuses can mutate into vibrant urban environments injecting a unique form of urbanism into cities. Respecting heritage and restoring ecologies is a priority, as well as the transition to car-free mobility. The Arenberg Park is seen as first stepstone in a bike-only city in the whole floodplain of the Dijle valley. The floodplain is given back to nature development becoming the center of the city in the making. Complex, mixed use and high density urban tissues are mainly proposed on the slopes of the valley giving way to shared economies, cooperatives and commons. As such, the gentrification caused by the university is turned into a form of inclusive urbanism.
CITY UNIVERSITY / UNIVERSITY CITY // LEUVEN Minh Quang Nguyen
DOMAINS
Fall studio 2018 // urbanism 1:7500
Historical Tissues industries and infrastructure are the catalysts of the dispersion of tissue over time across the territory marking clearly the landscape
Natural Territory emphasizing the territorial coherence generated by geography breaks the idea of the concentric city
CLE DU SOL // The Heverlee Hills Project Collaborator: Myriam El Khoury
The landscape penetrates again into the built realm restoring the rampart system on the city scale. This landscape figure becomes the main public armature that holds the project together, hierarchizing the new spaces. This theatrical space recalls microscale qualities long gone from the area enabling it to become a porous part of the city.
Existing Levels and Divisions
Public Armature
Proposed Built Strategy
Proposed Landscape Strategy
DIVERSIFYING FOR RESILIENCE Guayas River Basin
Ecuador Urbanism Studio, KU Leuven Collaborators: Studio Team 2017-2018
03 The transect crosses three major environments in the Guayas River Basin and runs from an estuarine complex (south) to a sweet water basin (north). These landscapes have been the object of exploitative monofunctional practices (shrimp farming, urbanisation and intensive cash crop agriculture) that have distorted the dynamics of the original ecosystems of mangroves, marshlands and tropical forests. Future urbanisation rates and climate change will increase the pressure on the environment, making water scarcity and food security serious issues. The transect vision proposes the recovery of original landscape logics by rebalancing the interplay of landscape, settlement and infrastructure. The envisioned new conditions enable people to stay in their areas, co-live with nature/water and create job opportunities. General strategies are: the afforestation of monofunctional landscapes and productive environments, respective topographical manipulations to create more space for water, diversified open space and built typologies that respond to the range of specific water-related problems.
Participation in 10th Barcelona’s Landscape Architecture Biennal “Performative Nature”, DUOT/UPC
International
Self-sustaining Coastal Communities The small scale fishermen villages in the Gulf of Guayaquil live in a symbiotic and high sensitive relationship with the surrounding mangrove forests and daily tides. The main strategy is to create renewable and self-sustainable food sources, potable and usable water, decreasing the dependency on the city of Guayaquil.
Resilient Urban Archipelago Estero Salado is the first urban frontier that invaded the mangroves forest and filled the estuary creeks. The project proposes the re-naturalisation and expansion of creeks in the most waterlogged areas creating an archipelago of urban islands with floodable zones, sustainable sanitation interventions and pedestrian friendly mobility corridors.
Re-thinking the Wildland - Urban Interface The second urban frontier invaded the previously productive haciendas at the foot of the Chongon mountain and Papagayo reserve, north of the city. The proposal is to increase strategically the density of the urban landscape by creating a productive and recreation landscape edge addressing bioclimatic and seasonal water influxes or shortages.
Revival of the Rural Daule is the rice basin of the region with interspersed farming communities. The projected vision includes densification strategies towards a new network of centralities supported by public services and new infrastructure. The new housing typologies are in line with the agricultural strategies.
URBAN REDEFINITIONS Requalification of Lakkos neighbourhood in the historical center of Heraklion
Heraklion, Crete, Greece Diploma Thesis, Technical University of Crete Collaborators: Christiana Karfi, Vasia Katramadaki 2015-2016
04 Lakkos is one of the last remaining areas that has preserved the old town’s tissue and the meaning of the neighbourhood. Its gradual abandonment by the locals and the dereliction of public spaces has led to the defamation of the wider area. Today, Lakkos is a collage of different morphologies and scales lacking a coherent strategic plan. The project aims to reinvent the undefined borders between the housing and public areas creating open intermediate-threshold spaces, as well as revitalize the inner neighbourhood through the method of urban acupuncture. Redesigning the public armature and the green network becomes the civic spine that connects the existing underused spaces, stimulates the public experience and incorporates a more complex program. The articulation of the spaces and paths is approached with respect to the existing old-town tissue and the microscale of the area. Finally, the proposed typologies are a contemporary translation of the traditional typology located in the wider area divided in two big categories whether they are located in the inner tissue or adjacent to main public axes.
INSIDE OUT THE VENETIAN MOAT Weaving in the (extra) ordinary
Chania, Crete, Greece Architectural Design, Technical University of Crete Collaborator: Rania Papavasileiou 2012-2013
05 The area under study is located at the boundaries between the old and the new town of Chania and is intersected by the Venetian walls. The objective was to create a multicenter of culture and habitation. The design vision was to reinforce the presence of university students in the city and promote the cultural – educational aspect by means of students and citizens’ interaction. The students’ residences become a benchmark in Chania, setting a powerful frontier towards the new city, while embracing the lowered part of the moat. Therefore, two main routes are created serving the pedestrian network. On the one hand, at street level, an elevated sheltered square is created, delimited by shops serving the local market. On the other hand, at the level of the moat, we find the new municipal library including a workshop section, multipurpose venues and the theater.
main entrance from the level of the moat
municipal library
archive
workshop section
bookstore
local shops
gallery
theatre’s dressing room
theatre entrance
projections
multi-purpose venue
restaurant
THE CITY AS A CARPET Reinventing the open space to stimulate the urban experience
Brussels, Belgium Concept and Analysis Studio, KU Leuven Collaborator: Mariia Zakharova 2017-2018
06 Brussels North gathers infrastructural lines, meandering through the valley. In between these metropolitan lines lay squeezed underused open spaces and double-sided buildings. The district, with an abundance of weakly defined spaces, has always been perceived as a city of motion, both in terms of transit, as in terms of social mobility. Designing the ‘groundscape’ that reinvents the open space can serve as a new system where the existing tissue is re-incorporated and new infrastructures and programmes can be implemented. Altering and enforcing the metropolitan lines and adding stitches in between them provide the framework to weave in social, cultural and commercial activities. Although the framework withstands, the weaving can ever change, according to the needs and desires of stakeholders. So, the playful alteration between these stitches unfolds a ‘festival-city’, stimulating the urban experience. Eventually, the city as a ‘’carpet’’ recycles what is available today, in order to become the vehicle for hosting the daily urban life of tomorrow.
Vacancy / Voids
The Big Scale City
Mismatch of scales
Weak connections
The Human Scale City
Brussels North as a bottleneck of metropolitan infrastructure lines
Brussels North as a bottleneck of metropolitan infrastructure Brussels North as a bottleneck of metropolitan infrastructure lines lines
Metropolitan lines cluster social and cultural programmes and double-sided
buildings Metropolitan lines cluster social and cultural programmes Metropolitan lines cluster social and cultural programmes and double-sided and buildings double-sided buildings
Creating possibilities by ‘stitching’ the metropolitan lines
Creating possibilities by “stitching” the metropolitan Creating possibilities by ‘stitching’ the metropolitan lines lines
N
Barcode of metropolitan and local lines
Double-sided buildings and oversized open spaces lay in between metropolitan and local lines
Double-sided buildings and oversized open spaces create the framework for ‘weaving’ the city
Barcode of metropolitan and local lines
Double-sided buildings and oversized open spaces lay in between metropolitan and local lines
Double-sided buildings and oversized open spaces create the framework for ‘weaving’ the city
Double-sided buildings and oversized open spaces lay inbetween the lines
Double-sided buildings and oversized spaces create the framework for “weaving” the city
Barcode of metropolitan and local lines
N
Scenarios of a Festival City
NORTH
RUE DE BRABANT RUE D’AERSCHOT
LEUVEN
BUS STATION Info point
SENNE
LOCAL MARKET Supporting Wednesday’s market
WTC
PARK
VELO Bike - rent repair social employment
VELO
VILVOORDE - ANTWERP
SOCIAL HOUSING
COMMUNITY CENTRE HOSTEL
URBAN AGRICULTURE
SPORTS FACILITIES Linked to the school, on condition of opening for the neighbourhood outside school hours
NEW RESIDENTIAL APPARTMENTS Private real estate development on condition of investing in refugee and cultural centre
H STATION
SHOPPING MALLS
M
BUS LINE
SKILL-DEVELOPMENT CENTRE Validation and obtainment of (technical) diploma
DAY CARE CENTRE
VENUE Presentations/ lectures/ cultural events
NATIONAL THEATRE
CITY HALL
PEDESTRIAN BOULEVARD
CENTRAL MARKET Selling agricultural products, supporting local economies and ethnic commodities
ROYAL THEATRE
FAST BIKE LINE
PEDESTRIAN LINE URBAN AGRICULTURE Agricultural land cultivated by (social housing) residents and refugees.
SAINT-CATHERINE CHURCH
THEATRE eg. participation of refugees
PUBLIC CULTURAL CENTRE Exhibitions/ conferences/ seminars/ youth activities ...
MAIN CAR AVENUE
REFUGEES CENTRE Night shelter/ common spaces basic physical and mental health services
CANAL
URBAN CARCASSES DECOMPOSED Tracing Brussels’ vacancy from the Brouckère up to Chaussée d’Anvers
Brussels, Belgium Research Methodologies, KU Leuven Collaborators: Amina Kaskar, Olivia Missiaen, Sarah Van de Velde 2017-2018
07 This analytical map is based on the deconstructive method of French artist Armelle Carnon who decomposes the urban fabric into a structured configuration of elements. As an application of this technique, our drawing uses this recipe to map the vacancy traced along a Brussels streetscape. Instead of mapping vacant blocks by displaying their abstract perimeter, the representation breaks down the urban carcasses into its actual empty square meters, which reveals the veritable vacancy rate hidden within the city’s fabric, behind its facades. The floor plans are re-arranged as an urban puzzle of non or misused components. Carnon’s methodology of urban assemblage is used to grasp the dimension, typology and shape of urban vacancy. This strategy is complemented with the representation of how vacancy appears in the streetscape. Its horizontal continuity illustrates the rhythm of vacancy perceived as if one would walk through the street. In a last layer, all empty fragments are restitched into a new hypothetical street of vacant typologies. The detailed sequence at the bottom represents the imaginary carcass of the boulevard.
thank you
MARIA SKORDOULI urbanism & architecture skordouli.maria@gmail.com +306946627024