George Papagkikas - Selected Architectural Works 2008-2014 by George Papagkikas

Giorgos Papagkikas

SELECTED ARCHITECTURAL WORKS 2008-2014

Contents:

Giorgos Papagkikas - CV

Emerging PARA-City

Design of Volos city’s seafront from Heroo statue to Anavros flow

Thessaloniki x4

Settlement of 20.000 residents at the artificial lake Karla

Parking building in the centre of Volos

TV station/workshops for comics and cartoons

Hybrid: bridge/library over the flow Krafsidonas in Volos

113

Apartment building in Volos

121 01

PERSONAL INFORMATION Place/date of birth: Athens, 19 of April 1986 Sex: male Military service: 24 of October2011 - 24 of July 2012 (9 months) Kalloni of Lesvos island, military engineer. Finish of service with the rank of reservist corporal.

COMMUNICATION INFORMATION Adress: Chiou 33, Agios Pavlos, Athens, Greece, p.c.:10438 Telephone: (+30) 6937947163 E-mail: g.papagkikas@gmail.com http://issuu.com/pagix

WORKING EXPERIENCE JANUARY 2015 - FEBRUARY 2018 ZSCIENCE A.B.E.E. technical company Architect Engineer

EDUCATION - STUDIES SEPTEMBER 2013 - SEPTEMBER 2014 University of Edinburgh, College of Art Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Postgraduate program, Master of Science in Architectural and Urban Design Degree thesis Title: “Emerging PARA-City: Towards an architecture of resistance against Mumbai’s social and spacial inequalities” SEPTEMBER 2004 - SEPTEMBER 2011 University of Thessaly Department of Architecture Master of Architecture Grade: 8,64/10 “Excellent” Degree thesis Title: “Design of Volos city’s seafront (from Heroo statue to Anavros flow)” Research essay Title” “How “modern” is the contemporary exemplary greek architecture?” Synopsis: Critical approach of the contemporary exemplary greek architecture through a total research and interpretation of the terms modernity and post modernity. SEPTEMBER 1998 - 2004 Lycee Leonin de Patissia, high school Grade of school certificate: 17,3 “Very good”

ACTIVITIES - WORKSHOPS - SEMINARS

MAY - JUNE 2013 Participation in the series of seminars with the title “Radical geography, 10 open seminars” Organizer: Kostis Hatzimihalis, Department of Geography, Harokopio University Lecturers: Kostis Hatzimihalis, Michael Edwards, Ray Hudson, Ntina Vaiou, Eric Clark, David Harvey SEPTEMBER 2012 Participation in the architectural competition with the title “Thessaloniki x4” Organizer: Unification of the Archaeological Sites of Athens S.A. SEPTEMBER 2011 Workshop with the title “The domestic denial of a heroic city, Port Said a city to remember”, Port Said, Egypt Organizer: MSA University, Port Said University, University of Thessaly APRIL 2010 Workshop with the title «Tangle Pockets», Tuscany, Italy Organizer: University of Thessaly, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ecological Organization Legambiente

BASIC SKILLS LANGUAGES Greek: mother language English: IELTS, Overall score: 7,5, January 2013/Certificate of Proficiency in English, University of Michigan, March 2004 French: Sorbonne C2, Universite Paris Sorbonne, October 2009 COMPUTER SKILLS Certified knowledge and handling computer skills at the objects: word processing, internet services, video and audio processing, animation processing and editing, automated design, multimedia applications, three-dimensional space modeling, design of virtual environments

ACTIVITIES - INTERESTS Comics, literature, video, cinema, electronic applications, history, arts Geography, politics, political philosophy and economy Traveling/cultural tourism: history, arts, museums, seminars, festivals etc

SEPTEMBER 15-NOVEMBER 2016 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture “Reporting From The Front” Participation to the Greek national representation with the title “#ThisIsACo-Op” Curator: Association of Greek Architects SADAS - PEA

EMERGING PARA-CITY: TOWARDS AN ARCHITECTURE OF RESISTANCE AGAINST MUMBAI’S SOCIAL AND SPATIAL INEQUALITIES GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS POSTGRADUATE DEGREE THESIS AUGUST 2014

Emerging PARA-City: Towards an architecture of resistance against Mumbai’s social and political inequalities Postgraduate degree thesis, August 2014

Introduction/city analysis India is one of the few countries which in the time of crisis have been able to keep their development rates at high levels, forming the “BRICs” (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Of course this is mostly due to the low cost of their people’s working force. Mumbai is one of the largest and most important cities of India which, like the country it belongs to, is experiencing a spectacular growth in recent years. One could say that it constitutes a compression of capitalism’s greatest contradictions, displaying the most extreme images of absolute poverty as well as of enormous wealth. The spacial character of such a predicament is really hard to overestimate. The most apparent example of that is the fact that Mumbai hosts the largest and most expensive single family house1 while 55 to 70% of its inhabitants live on the streets or in a vast constellation of slum settlements that cover only 9% of the city’s area. The experience of a walk in Mumbai is dominated by three different types of spectacles (p. 09). The noisiest element is the car traffic. Although cars are a very less common way of transportation than other public means, such as trains (only 15% of daily commuting are effected by car)2, the roads of the city are heavily congested through most of the day, creating a nightmarish condition for commuters. The traffic density transforms the city into a loud orchestra of vehicles and horns, and makes breathing in Mumbai the equivalent of smoking two-and-a-half packs of cigarettes per day3. The second dominant aspect of the Mumbai’s experience is its buildings. The city displays a broad spectrum of constructions of different functions, types, sizes and forms. High rises surrounded with fences, slums, old and derelict apartment blocks for the working class (they are called “chawls” and represent 75% of the city’s formal housing stock4), large colonial public buildings, spectacular temples and mosques, remaining industrial infrastructures, art deco, colonial and modern houses are placed together. The density is such that combined with the lack of public space it creates a feeling of asphyxia. Of course the most powerful element is the skyscrapers that dominate the city’s skyline and seem to hang above the head of a walker almost everywhere. What gives Mumbai its intense, dynamic and special character, however, is not its buildings or its traffic, but what is happening between the two. Indeed, between the walls and the cars, on the sidewalks or on the roads exists an enormous multitude of everyday procedures and practices that cannot be easily found in other cities. Millions of homeless people create constructions of different types, which every night make the streets look like dormitories. Permanent or temporary makeshift structures of religious character make frequently their appearance in relation to rituals like festivities, as well as leisure activities like cricket or kite-flying. Most importantly (and evidently), a vast number of different market forms flow constantly almost everywhere. Such functions and everyday practices in public space, which one could expect to find only inside slums, fuse into the other two aspects through the whole city’s environment, rendering it unique and making the experience of Mumbai a constant ‘attack on the senses’. This condition makes the slums seem not as much a series of clearly circumscribed islands inside an estranged environment, but more like vessels, hubs of a rhizomatic5 networks of flows of ev-

1 The “Antilla House” skyscraper. (p. 08 top left) 2 Mehta, Suketu (2006), “Mumbai” in Cities Architecture and Society: 10. Mostra internazionale di architettura, la Biennale di Venecia (2006) 3 Ibid. 4 O’Hare, Greg/ Abbott, Dina/ Barke, Michael (1998), “A review of slum housing policies in Mumbai” in Cities, Vol. 15, No. 4 5 For the idea of the rhizome: Deleuze, Gilles/ Guattari Felix (1980), A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia,

eryday spatial activities, which cover the whole city in different densities and, when it finds free space, fills it by acquiring a more stable character. One could argue that there are two extremes in the main attitudes of city shaping and inhabiting in Mumbai, but possibly with many more differentiations between them. On one hand there are the projects and buildings serving the upper classes and the wealthy visitors. They consist of Xanandu-like properties of luxurious apartment blocks, swanky clubs, theaters, offices or Dubai-like tourist resorts, separated from the rest of the city by huge walls with barbered and consertina wires. It is about gated communities always guarded by private armies or by the local police which seems to be occupied only with this task. This situation leaves plenty of unguarded space to lumpen groups who establish suzerainty and produce nests of severe criminality (especially in abandoned industrial infrastructures like old mills).6 On the other hand there are the slum settlements where millions of people live together in dense “incity villages” that seem like a constellation of lakes scattered in a landscape of high rises. Inside those “lakes” thousands of one to tree storey shacks lay adjacent to each other, forming a network which functions like a threshold between public and private space. Due to this character, plenty of times they look more like corridors inside an apartment, making whole neighborhoods look like big communes. Slums appear on city maps and plans like empty areas. The roads inside them are subjected to almost no official public control and they are constantly shaped, maintained and used by the people lining alongside them. They therefore obtain a character of pure common ground. This peculiar urban arrangement produces an interesting type of symbiosis that sometimes fuses to the whole Mumbai a sense of collectivity and solidarity.7 It is difficult for someone to clearly define what is a slum and what’s not, mostly due to the existence of different levels of legal consolidation and construction methods and qualities. On the other hand the economic state of the slum dwellers is something difficult to describe and categorize, not only due to the fact that there is a number of them who might be richer that people living in “not-slum” settlements, but also because the whole Mumbai, even the slums, are constantly full of people without any specific place to stay. What is more, in the slums there are many class differentiations, and while the majority of people living there are workers or unemployed, the vast number of micro-enterprises suggest the importance of the percentage of those who own them. As an effort to conceive and represent the differentiation between the inhabitants of Mumbai and the urban forms that their existence takes, we could use a series of dipoles (p. 08). This separation is surely vague and none of the categories used can be 100% accurate. What is more, it is really difficult to perceive and put in line the elements which are in between the extremes. But all those categories, working together, might be able to give us a descriptive view.

University of Minnesota Press 6 Sidharth Bhatia, City of a million island, Hibdustrian Times, 4/9/2013 7 Mehta, Suketu (2006), “Mumbai” in Cities Architecture and Society: 10. Mostra internazionale di architettura, la Biennale di Venecia (2006)

Slum settlements

b c

a d

Railroads Airports, docks

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Road network

informal

formal

illegal

legal

not designed

designed wealthy

poor

clear

dirty squat

property

exploited

eploiter

no right to the city1

right to the city overcity

undercity2

static

kinetic3

capital

work4

empire

multitude5

strategies

tactics6 1 Henry Lefevre

2 Katherine Boo

3 Rahul Mehrotra

4 Karl Marx

5 Antonio Negri-Mickael Hardt

6 Michael De Certau

other activities

markets

street practices religion

housing

traffic barbed wire

buildings

a 5,219km

b 5,955km

c 7,287km

Emerging PARA-City In order to tackle such problems and inequalities, a spatial proposal should at first refer to and act for those who suffer from them1. Due to the nature of the slums - the density, the size and their relation to the rest of the urban environment - a proposal in those specific areas could have multiple effects which, like slums’ ambience and character, could diffuse throughout the whole city. It is obvious that a proposal inside such a place should avoid large-scale interventions, like those used until now, with the devastating effects they can cause. On the contrary, it should try to respect and protect the environment and use its important spatial elements in order to intensify the social and consciousness results of symbiosis and collectivity they create. Thus, it is about a gentle, subtle intervention, which, with the minimum change, will try to trigger the maximum effects. Based on the nature of the problem, we understand that a new proposal for its approach should avoid being just an external effort for the immediate amelioration of slum dwellers’ lives, like simply providing an additional amenity. Not only might such an approach recycle or even aggravate the problem2,but it would also reproduce a ‘savior’ model; the idea of a messianic subject that will try to change the life conditions of an object that it is outside of, a model that has been proven not only very limited and unsustainable, but also ineffective. It should not be about an engineering answer to pure material needs but about of an architectural proposal centered on the change of experience and consciousness through spatial and sense relations. What a proposal should try to do is to urge slum dwellers to change the situation themselves. For, not only they know their needs better than anyone else, but they are also the only ones who can actually produce fundamental change, being the majority but also Mumbai’s main energy provider. What is needed to effect progress is a collective apprehension of themselves: awareness of their exploitation, their power and capabilities, that is to say, a unifying consciousness of collectivity, the ability to see themselves as a united entity who can obtain voice and power. It is a political identity that is missing, a citizen status as a member of a certain social structure, the composition of a type of polis, a new city within and alongside or ‘para’3 the current one.

Program

Such an architectural approach, in the area of Mumbai should intervene in the largest slum concentrations, act with respect and make all efforts to host, preserve, activate and intensify the public space and people’s practices in it so that it could become a field of production of social consciousness and collectivity. The cre-

1 We should always keep in mind that a complete solution of such problems cannot be reached as long as it doesn’t radically address their true origins found in the social base of the economy, which are the inevitable economic exploitation and inequalities of a capitalistic way of production. 2 Providing an answer to a specific need, a certain amenity, in the existing economic reality, is sure to have the following results. Either it will be an attraction to more housing units intensifying the density and aggravating again the living conditions, or it will provoke gentrification chain events raising the land value and resulting to the eviction of current inhabitants. But even if this is not the case and a specific improvement of some dwellers’ quality of life is accomplished, it will only mean that there can be ‘better” slums, and not actually address the main issue which is the existence of the difference between them and the rest of the city and society. 3 Para /παρά, (Greek) = near, alongside with something A-A’

ation of “centralities” through public buildings which can act as social condensers is an example of such an approach. On the other hand, it is important to give to the slum dwellers the image of themselves and their position spatially and therefore so-cially, through what Fredric Jameson calls “cognitive mapping”4. In this specific case that could mean to give to inhabitants the ability to elevate themselves from the level of the road to a higher point of view, above the “slum lakes” of Mumbai, an ability which will provide them with the view and the experience of a broader horizon and a sense of orientation. The program of such proposal should aim to intensify the communication either it is physical or not, creating a network that would transfer the information, which will be produced collectively and democratically in the condensers, and display it in much frequented spaces. It could also mean the creation of info-displaying links between such public spaces. On this direction it the initial point of a network of communication between slum communities is proposed. Through this network that should be run by them, a unifying, collective, spacial, social and economical awareness and conscience for the slum dwellers will be produced. Eventually, it is about a series of gentle, surgical urban interventions in the sensitive areas of Mumbai’s slums, which would envelope the processes of inhabitant’s everyday life -the transportation from one place to another included- without obstructing but facilitating it. This approach could be, at the end, one of the structural elements of the trench from which the vast unprivileged majority of Mumbai’s inhabitants could start a collective attempt to reclaim its right to the city. The proposed infrastructures of the network of communication between slum communities consist of three different types of interventions: 1) The “centers”: They are spaces of gathering and communication (assembly spaces). They are placed in central locations of slum unities, adjacent to main roads or big open spaces and are the main producers of information. 2) The “hubs”: They are five buildings placed in areas of big slum concentrations within Mumbai. They are mostly put in high places serving as landmarks. They receive, elaborate and share information before they send it back to the communities. 3) The “links”: They are infrastructures that help moving inside slum unities, bridge separated areas and connect different communities. This is where information, elaborated from the factories is displayed. The information created at the centers, gathered and elaborated at the hubs and redistributed by the info display points will con¬sist of four different kinds;

4 Jameson, F. (1984), Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press Durham. Jameson, Fredric (1990), “Cognitive Mapping” in: Nelson, C./Grossberg, L. [ed]. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, University of Illinois Press Lynch, Kevin, (1960), The Image of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge MA

B-B’ 1

100

200m

a) Decisions, of the community and of other communities. b) Events, organized by the community or other communities. c) News from slums and from outside. d) Maps. The Factories will construct three types of interactive maps that will be displayed; two that will show the city’s networks of water/ sewerage and electricity and one that will show information regarding the dwellings of the PARA-City (size, mode/quality of construction, number of inhabitants/density). In this way the slum dwellers will have the ability to form a rhizomatic immaterial network that will hover over the whole Mumbai enwrapping it and giving them the infrastructures needed to construct a collective political structure, identity and force.

Implementation

In order to approach this task in architectural terms, input from the field of the arts could be proven useful. More specifically, we could be inspired by the method of the painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Giacometti when talking about his artistic production has said that his basic effort was always to, “render his vision”5. What he was trying through his sculpting was not the creation of a mere object, a perfect autonomous form, but the research, examination, representation and understanding of the process of viewing. What he was attempting to do was not the forming of an item itself, but the construction of a specific experience, a proposal for the relation between the spectator and the object-sculpture. Taking a similar approach when considering designing for Mumbai could shift the importance and interest from the form of the buildings and the architectural objects themselves, to the intention and effort of constructing a spatial awareness that would create a social equivalent. This could be the product of an architecture which offers visual experiences to its users -the slum dwellers-, such as broader horizons and the ability to see themselves from above, helping them to cognitively map and understand their position in relation with the rest of the city. It could also envelop and help simple everyday activities like walking, thus intensifying relations, or provide collective landmarks and places of encounter and meeting which would act like social condensers that urge and strengthen the sense of living together. At the same time a series of his sculptures can be used to extract inspiration for the form of the proposed infrastructures. In this way Alberto Giacometti’s artistic approach offers a method for architectural and urban design to initially think of, approach and even confront the extreme and violent inequalities of this manifold and chaotic city.

5 Klemm, Christian (2001), Alberto Giacometti, New York : Museum of Modern Art, Zürich : Kunsthaus Zürich

5km area of intervention slums rail network main car network entrances (ports/airports) industrial area H hubs network and hub’s range

program diagram: communication network hubs communities information (from communities to hubs) elaborated information (from hubs back to communities) C-C’

D-D’

E-E’

F-F’

2 3

Area of intervention The area of Shaki-Naka (airport slum) is chosen for our proposal. This area, almost adjacent to the Mumbai airport, is the geographical centre of slum clusters and hosts the largest concentration of them. The proposed installation and communication network can be seen as part of a broader existing system or a starting point from which it will spread to every slum settlement of the city.

“There is a specter hovering over Mumbai...” Conceptual drawing/collage. The proposed system grows strong enwrapping the whole city.

5km

500m

program centre (C)

hub (H)

links

assembly space offices archive information display information display information display open theatre passage observatory passage observatory w.c. observatory w.c. 0

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Alberto Giacometti, Falling Man 1

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10m Section A’-A

Hub The “hub” building (the central one of five proposed for the Mumbai PARA-City) is situated in an elevated point at the centre of the slum area and offers a landmark. It functions as a telecomunication’s tower (of 72.55m total height) and hosts office spaces and a radio station. It tries to produce the energy it consumes by solar, wind and water power generators. It is used by the community for the community and provides the office space needed for the reception, elaboration and emission of information. The slope where it is situated is transformed to an amphitheatre creating a gathering space-information producer. It also functions as a passage in which information can be displayed, establishing a link between two areas separated by a cliff. Finally the building offers three different types of vertical movement (central lifts, central staircase and an alternative path of suspended platforms and ship stairs enwrapping office spaces) through which the visitor/user experiences the building as something he can walk through, touch and climb at its whole extent. The building also functions as a vertical park, offering a periscope and α series of elevated public decks from which the observer can orientate himself in a much broader horizon than the one slum dwellers where experiencing before. function diagram energy generators and circuit periscope information routes water flow and tank closed spaces 1 radio station 2 office spaces 3 machinery room 4 w.c.

50m

2 3 4

Alberto Giacometti, Standing Woman

0 1

20m

ground floor

0 1

level 2: main deck/ amphitheatre

level 4: second deck

level 8: tupical office floor plan (of 4)

20m

level 3: machinery room

level 1: w.c./water tank

level 9: third deck

level 10: radio station

level 11: radio station archives

level 12: uper staircase/ wind power generators

level 13: observatory

hub from above

Center The “centre” building tries to act as a social condenser. It is situated in a strategic central point inside the community at a crossroads which it transforms into an urban square. It thus becomes the scene of encounters, passing, resting, gathering of all sorts and information display. It is designed in order to maximize free open public space. The sitting places which provides (one inner and one outer amphitheatre, amphitheatrical seats on ground level) can be used by the inhabitants for lectures, assemblies, talks, lessons, screenings etc and host the production of the information (news, community decisions etc) which will be sent to the hub for elaboration and retransmission. At the same time the proposed observatory offers a wide view and understanding of the area. Office and archive spaces are provided also giving the possibility of elaborating, storing, accessing and reusing community’s information and other material. Given the extreme lack of such infrastructures inside Mumbai (especially in slum areas) the proposed toilets are sure to intensify the use and vividness of the building, strengthening its role and impact.

Alberto Giacometti, Three Men Walking II 3

50m

Section A-A’

Section B-B’

Section C-C’

0 1

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Level 1 (+1.5m)

Level 2 (+4.25m)

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5 Scale 1:200

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Level 4 (+10.55m)

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Center from above

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Horizontal link

The “link” infrastructures are structures for vertical movement or even bridges that float above physical obstacles or dense neighborhoods. They connect different places within slums and intensify the relations between different communities. They therefore become lively points hosting common everyday practices, ideal for displaying information to the residents. The foundation of the bridges are placed in strategic points inside the neighborhoods adjacent to common open spaces. Their form provides public seats that can also function as assembly spaces or theaters in an effort to intensify the collectivity of the people that live around them and use them.

10 Scale 1:500

50m

20m

N Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man I

0 1

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Models Center

Hub

Horizontal link details

Exhibition photos

DESIGN OF VOLOS CITY’S SEAFRONT FROM HEROO STATUE TO ANAVROS FLOW ANNA PARASKEVA GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS DEGREE THESIS SEPTEMBER 2011

Design of Volos city’s seafront from Heroo statue to Anavros flow Degree thesis, September 2011

Introduction “In a classic work, The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch taught us that the alienated city is above all a space in which people are unable to map (in their minds) either their own positions or the urban totality in which they find themselves (…). Disalienation in the traditional city, then, involves the practical reconquest of a sense of place and the construction or reconstruction of an articulated ensemble which can be retained in memory and which the individual subject can map and remap along the moments of mobile, alternative trajectories.” Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1984), Duke University Press Durham

This degree thesis attempts the reformation and the unification of Volos’ seafront that extends between the central building of the university (Papastratos building) and the Anavros flow. It is an area of 1400m in length and a maximum of 150m in width which includes the park of St. Konstantinos, the installations of the Xenia hotel and the park of Anavros. The study area is one of the very few and absolutely needed for the city open public spaces of this size. As such, it is, for a long time, the field of conflict between public and private interests. The private sector constantly attempts its expansion and the exploitation of a more and more larger part of the park, mostly by changing its use from an open public green space to a touristic settlement region. When approaching the study area, we find out that it is dominated by obstacles and separations of many kinds which keep it fragmented, depriving the visitor of the ability of a total conception and acceptance of it. In addition, these obstacles and separations prevent the visitor to use the area and to move with ease throughout its range. This situation, combined with the organic, vague and not unified sea limit of Anavros’ park, differentiates this particular space from the other structures the seafront of Volos city is composed of, which are, in general, greater, more clear and distinct. On the other hand the side of the area to the city presents a series of important obstacles (parking, cafeterias, plants etc) which make it function more like a boundary of the city by the sea than a link between them. Based on all this, the goal of our thesis is to propose a design of this specific area, which will restore, ensure and intensify its public character, but also its larger, easier access and usage by the society of Volos. On the same time it will unify and reinstate the area as another clear and discernible part of the city’s seafront, with a size respective to the other parts of the city. The danger of excessive homogeneity and possible monotony which could be produced is perceived and dealt with by designing different qualities and objects in every scale. Although these different qualities and objects do not undermine the sense of the whole, of the united and of the continuity, they offer, at the same time, landmarks, interest and a possibility of surprise. All these are created in order to give to the users of the area what Fredric Jameson calls “cognitive mapping”, that is to say the ability of the visitor/resident to perceive the system which he is in to the greatest possible extent, succeeding in this way to acquire a more familiar, active and collaborative relationship with his/her surrounding environment.

Existing condition

Analysis

Strategies

The diagrams above present three kinds of “separations” which are detected through our analysis and which we have to remove. These are: 1) the separation of the city from the sea caused by the whole park 2) the study area’s central separation into two parts, caused by a thickening of installations, private uses and fencings (e.x. the Xenia hotel, cafeterias, a shipping group) and 3) partial fragmentation of the area due to the existence of smaller obstacles (plants and level differences at St. Kostantinos’ park, various structures and a restaurant/cafeteria at Anavros park). Our first reaction to all these is the detection and the presentation of the projections to the sea of the roads which are vertical to the park. This element is chosen as one of the basic design tools, because by the “opening” of these axes (in different ways) the relation of a great part of the city with the sea is intensified. In this way, the resident of Volos, through the gridiron urban planning system, will be much more able to see the sea from every crossroad and to apprehend more clearly the relation of his/hers position with the rest of the city and with the natural elements which surround it. In the opposite page we present the basic design strategies which we use. The first is the intervention in the shape of the coastline by large clear moves which transform the area into another distinct and continuous part of the whole seafront of Volos. On the next level the coverage of the whole region with a characteristic uniform paving is decided. In this way the stylistic and experiential unification of the area is achieved. This paving fades out in the streets which start from the edges of the new park intensifying its continuity with the rest urban system. At the same time green spaces are enforced and unified in large clear totals which go through the whole length of the area. The next chart is a diagrammatic illustration of the total design approach of the study. At the “clearing” of the extensions of roads which are vertical to the park that we have just described, is added the intensification of the horizontal routes. Thus a new network is created, which can constitute the “expansion” of the urban tissue into the intermediate between the built environment and the sea. In plus, the six towers we add in characteristic places have a dominant role. These towers, by their repeated image, but also by their use (ability to function as periscopes and to view the region from a great height), give the chance of perceiving the whole park as one system of common discernible structures. With the exception of the Xenia hotel and St. Konstantinos church, we remove existing buildings and add in their places new which generate a tension of uses and create attractions. They are created by ground foldings, maximizing the size of the open public space which now includes their roofs, while of course they acquire a particular and close relation with the ground, leaving the towers as the only dominant tall element. Park’s front to the city is homogenized in a continuous low traffic and speed road, while the demands of parking spaces are met with three new parking buildings which fill urban gaps and create- in a way- three different entrances to the area.

Implementation New buildings and structures: A) The towers 1) At the end of the uniform seafront of the cornice of Volos, in front of the central building of University of Thessaly and behind the statue (“Heroo”). It is at the beginning of the longitudinal wave breaker, which is a characteristic walking public space of the city. 2) Almost at the centre of St. Konstantinos’ park. 3) At the end of the new brachium, elevated on the building. 4) At the confluence of the two elevated galleries (the one which is above and parallel to the swimming pool and other which is perpendicular to the beach). 5) At the end of the “river” installation and in the sea. 6) Also in the sea, at the end of the Anavros’ beach, in relation with the proposed bathe installation. B) New buildings They are shaped as ground foldings on top of which open public space expands. They house uses that existed before near the specific points where they are now placed. These are: 1) Restaurant-cafeteria at St. Konstantinos’ park, as a “pedestal” for the tower 2. 2) The brachium which takes the uses of the shipping club headquarters, a cafeteria and the public radio station. 3) An open public swimming pool installation provided with an olympic size pool, diving pool and public rest rooms. 4) Volos’ young marine scouts club office. 5) Cafeteria. 6) A new building which houses “Avra” restaurant, characteristic landmark of the city.

C) Other constructions

D) Maintained existing installations

1) Skateboard ramp. 2) Bascketball court. 3) Two amphitheatres. 4) Transfer of the existing structure-simulation of a part of a Neolithic settlement. 5) Grid of tall lights which move by the wind creating a condition of mild changing night lighting. 6) Artificial rocks-sea boundary, which functions as a seating place minimizing the distance between the visitor and the water, unifying the sea with the park. 7) Bridge. 8) Series of pergolas which offer shading and unify, by their form, the park with the archaeological museum’s courtyard. 9) The “river”, an artificial stank covered with a passable metal grid, which goes through the museum’s courtyard and the park and ends in the sea. Inside it runs constantly water pumped from the sea by mechanical means. 10) Bathe installation on one of Anavros’ beach wave breakers, that consists of floating platforms and elevated diving surfaces.

1) University of Thessaly central building. 2) St. Konstantinos church, a city’s important landmark, work of the famous architect Aristotelis Zahos (1936). 3) The Xenia hotel, another basic landmark of the city, characteristic example of the series of famous homonymous hotels built in Greece between the years 1950 and 1974. We propose the drastic limitation of its private surrounding space, the abolition of its swimming pool (replaced by the new public open swimming installations) and the abolition of its open private parking space (parking needs are met with the new parking building which are proposed to be at the square opposite to the Hotel). 4) Old wing of Volos’ central hospital. 5) Archaeological museum of Volos. We propose the restoration of its courtyard and the integration into it of the four buildings existing in front of it. The change of use of these four buildings is proposed so that they could be converted to centers of contemporary art periodical exhibitions.

Trees

The towers

The towers are created in the form of large light metal structures. Their total height is 29,5 meters (which varies, depending on each place) and have six levels. They function as machines which produce energy but also view and vertical public spaces. They are divided in two different types: type 1 which disposes four wind generators of simple helix, and type 2 which disposes eight wind generators of vertical helix. In addition, four turbine wind generators are installed at the top of each tower. At the centre of each tower is placed a periscope which increases the ability of watching the area and the rest of the city. People can move by stairs or by elevators while the surfaces consist of passable metal grids which offer transparency, with the exception of the one of the highest level which protects the lower levels from the rain.

Street furniture The basic goals of the thesis (physical, experiential and perceptual unification, apprehension and use of the study area) attempt to be met also by the design at the scale of street furniture. For this reason are chosen net elements that are repeated throughout the length of the region, which are in a stylistic coherence with each other. The concrete structures (e.x. seats, linear seats, “mest” seats, “inversed nests” seats, paving types, artificial rocks) are a dominant element spread in the landscape which meet many equipment needs. All of them are designed based on the fixed proportions 0,8x0,4x3m.

The road between the park and the rest of the city once was part of Volos’ railroad connection with the mount Pelion. Train rails still exist there. We propose their maintenance and exposure.

A sculptural installation of the famous artist Filolaos is placed in Anavros park. It consists of a surface and a metal line which goes through it. The latter lifts itself from the ground, creating forms. The reposition of the installation as well as the extension of the line are proposed, so that the line could go through the whole park of Anavros and end at the building of the museum. Eight pergolas are designed in the axis of this line.

In 1988 Volos hosted a sculpture symposium in which important Greek and foreign artists participated. During this symposium were created sculptures that were donated to the city afterwards. Nine of them are today placed in Anavros park. It is proposed for them to be moved in the new space, on a green surface. In the archaeological museum’s courtyard there is a multitude of ancient sculptures and other antiquities, which we propose to be moved in the green spaces designed for the specific place. Finally, new sculptures could be placed on top of pedestals into the “river” (20/C9), at the openings of the metal grid which covers it. (E.x.: Volos is built at the position of the ancient city “Iolkos”, from which the mythical hero Thiseas started the journey of the Argonautica expedition. Models of his ship “Argo” are now in the city. Such a sculpture could be placed into the flowing water of the “river”). Thus this structure which unites the museum’s courtyard with the park and the sea takes the character of a “river of culture”.

swimming pool

museum’s courtyard and outside area

restaurant and amphitheatre

brachium

The buildings 1. The brachium (B2)

plans (scale 1:500)

2. The swimming pool (B3) plans (scale 1:500)

section and plans (scale 1:250) 3. Restaurant-cafeteria in Ag. Konstantinos park (B1)

4. Restaurant-cafeteria in Anavros park (B4) section and plans (scale 1:250)

5. “Avra” restaurant-cafeteria in Anavros beach (B6) section and plans (scale 1:250)

6. Young marine scouts club office (B5) section and plans (scale 1:250)

plans (scale 1:250) 7. Bathe installation at Anavros’ beach (C10)

THESSALONIKI X4 DIMITRIS POULIOS DIMITRIS TSITSANIS GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS SOFIA TSADARI THANOS ANDRITSOS ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION SEPTEMBER 2012

Thessaloniki x4

Architectural competition, September 2012

The purpose of the competition is the search of proposals for the basic city cell, the square. The Greek city is characterized by small squares with a dense street network, narrow pedestrian zones and dispersed green spaces. This is why the goal is the creation of a larger square (square X4, Thessaloniki X4) which will affect positively the microclimate of the area, the quality of life, the image but also the function of public space. The objective of the competition constitutes the free choice of at least four typical squares in Thessaloniki municipality area, out of the historical centre of the city, with degraded urban environment (due to either high building level, high density, lack of green spaces, communal installations or devaluation of old building supply etc) and the creation of a proposal for the development of the “cross”, that is to say the in-between roads, combining them with existing voids or open spaces. The contesters are called to confront space in its three dimensions.

Our proposal attempts a multileveled solution of the competition’s specifications, seeking architectural solutions that create a new public space quality within urban areas. There is a double goal: On the one hand, to adopt planning strategies of instant improvement to the built environment: On the other hand, the questioning towards the future image of the city and the searching for long-term solutions to more radical urban transformations.

The paving of Psarron street in combination with the paved parts of the vertical roads create a large area of public space. Using the same methodology we can shape pedestrian networks which will unite our space unit with other areas.

The object of the competition is to study the basic (structural) unit of the Greek city, the Block. The choice of the united design of a small set of existing blocks represents a novelty in the first place. The production of the Greek urban space depends greatly on the particularities which emerge from the small land property, the division of the blocks and the “housing by exchange” model of construction. The block’s scale, given the lines of property and street layout, often leaves few possibilities. At the same time, proposals for larger interventions face this complex status quo and very frequently fail. Thereby, a new tool could be the design based on the union of 4 or more blocks.

Our second planning concept is the attempt of a united confrontation of unbuilt public and private space (especially the open air spaces inside the blocks). Although our strategic choice of urban cultivation is proposed especially for the private open air spaces of blocks, it is also proposed for the public space in a corresponding way. Two main unities of public space are formed with in-between parts and connections. Firstly there is the “water-square” at the centre of the block. The second is the designing of a linear square at Loula pedestrian street, where a play ground will be created. At In both cases a free and open design is chosen, with emphasis at on the ground treatment, the green, the soil, the cultivation and the different qualities which could be obtained by the residents’ usage. At the open air spaces inside the blocks, the propriety limits become the cultivation limits.

There is a need for our thought to return to utopia. Though, we shouldn’t consider sufficient the quest of a perfect spatial form which we would focus on. We can thing of an utopia of processes which produce space. By this we mean that we can, starting today, phrase an utopia initiating tomorrow, within specific and easy interventions. Site selection: For our proposal we have chosen the site of social housing on Kleanthous street. It is found at the D Municipal District of Salonika, at Kato Toumpa, southeast of the city centre. We have chosen the blocks which are produced by the streets Kleanthous, Charisi, Karolidou, Priamou and Papanastasiou. Our area is crossed thwartly by Psarron street, while within her is found Kosmidi street and Ioakim Loulia pedestrian zone. Design concepts: Circulation flow. Our basic choice is the restraint of car’s use. At the whole area we use paving. However at the linear parts of Karolidou, Kosmidi, Charisi and Loulia we choose a pavement which allows the mildly car’s crossing, for access to the pilotis and other parking spaces. The rest area is defined as pedestrian way without cars crossing.

Public and private space design. Residents’ participation.

The environment as a unification factor of design. The unity of conception concludes with the environmental design as its fundamental element. The widespread function of urban cultivation is our basic proposal. It’ s significance is triple. Synthetic, because it creates new qualities in the uneasy and unplanned open air spaces inside the blocks. Affordable because in times like today it gives one, even limited, way out at the deadlocks of the majority of households. Environmental because the replacement of the existing surfaces with cultivated ones will have a positive impact. The main ways of achieving environmental design is the reinforcement and the specific forming of vegetation as well as the suitable choice of coating materials. The designing proposal also provides for water surfaces and springs. Water constitutes the core of the central square, while a network for water’s collection and utilization is created which is connected to small tanks at in each urban cultivation. An additional component element is the introduction of e metal grid. This grid is an element which repeats itself taking different forms and creating the elements of urban outfit, forming, at the same time, conversational unities into the area.

The chosen area of the proposal

SETTLEMENT FOR 20.000 RESIDENTS AT THE ARTIFICIAL LAKE KARLA GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS LEONIDAS TSIHRITZIS ARCHITECTURAL DISIGN STUDIO VII FEBRUARY 2010

Settlement of 20.000 residents at the artificial lake Karla Architectural design studio, February 2010

The new artificial lake Karla is on the northeastern side of the plain of Thessaly, at the foot of the mount Pelion. At the beginning the demand of the studio was the creation of permanent residences in this area for at least 300 persons. The aim of the project was the design of a settlement with the least possible ecological footprint as well as the synthesis of the urban site with the local natural landscape. Our team opposed this demand on the following grounds: a new, even small built-up area in the uninhabited yet countryside would create a great ecological footprint by its existence only. It would be inevitable for that to happen because of needs related to infrastructures, transportations, nets and the production of garbage. Consequently, in our search for a solution friendly to the environment, the optimal answer would be to avoid the creation of any settlement. However, in case that such a construction would be absolutely necessary, the creation of an accomplished urban center which could gather an important number of residents who lived before elsewhere would be the more ecologically acceptable solution. In this way the new settlement could replace, in an organized way, scattered settlements that would stop to exist. By this concentration, the ecological footprint would be limited, since vast, vacant areas would be vested to nature. The demands of the studio were modified due to these arguments and the acceptance of plans proposing settlements populated by more than 300 inhabitants was decided. Proposal Our concept for this project is based on the opinion that a new thesis regarding the whole urban planning goes through a new thesis on economy, on the needs and the productive forces. With this in mind our proposal is based on, and to some extent “rephrases”, the effort made in USSR during the twenties towards the creation of a new socialistic economic model defined by the domination of collectiveness, of the concern for the communal and the public interest against the individual and the private one. Thus, we approach this issue, in every designing scale, starting from the effort to overrule what K. Marx and F. Engels called “inequality between the city and the country”. As it is obvious, our project is closer to the urbanism and not the disurbanism side of the Russian avant-garde.

Apart from the lake and the productive activities that will be developed because of its creation, we believe that the really important resource existing in the area is the plain of Thessaly. Indeed, the production means that depend on it as well as the need for work there, are the exclusive reasons for the existence of many small settlements spread all over its range. We propose a new economic model of management of the plain of Thessaly: the abolition of the numerous small settlements which create an excessive partition of the cultivable land and their consolidation in big agricultural units of collective ownership that could offer economies of scale and, taking advantage of the technology, they could be more productive and more easily and quickly cultivated. Land planning Under the new conditions the owners do not have to settle near their properties. Consequently, there is no need, any more, for many small villages spread in the plain. Those villages create for the environment a more intense problem than bigger, aggregated housing units do, because of their dispersion, their lengthy road infrastructure, the garbage they produce as well as because of the necessity for frequent commuting from and to bigger urban centers. Following the above we propose the abolition of the villages and the distribution of their population into three new urban sites: two of them will be created by the expansion of the already existing cities of Larissa and Volos and the third will be a new settlement of 20000 inhabitants built between the aforementioned cities, the new city of the lake Karla. The levee before the filling of the lake

Urban planning Our aim is to create a new form of habitation harmonized with the environment and in intimate relation with it against its separation in natural and artificial. With reference to the design of the new city our main concern is the equal utilization of the two dominant geological elements of the area which are the resources that will give life to the city: the plain and the lake. In our effort to deepen the residents’ relationship with these two elements we decided to locate the new settlement in the middle of the distance between them, at the verge. We propose, then, a linear city-machine at the border of the lake with the plain; the city will be cited around and on the big levee of the lake. This levee is a major technical project in the form of landscape architecture. It has a length of approximately 11km, a height of 8m, and its width is bigger at the basis (70,5 m) and lesser at the top (5,5m).

are located in the plain. Unlike the main options of the modern movement in urbanism, we do not install the different functions on the basis of a pure zoning; on the contrary, we distribute them homogeneously along the city, so that all the parts of the city could be equally served and active during the day.

Apart from being the “backbone” of the city, the levee is also its main traffic artery. We propose the installation of a double- lined urban train at the top of it. This double line will have 13 stations covering the entire length of the city, making it function. The train will reduce the use of cars. Aiming at the elimination of their In our effort to design from the scratch the city and to perceive the way of living the residents presence in the city, we have designed special parking buildings that are distributed uniformly in the city. would have, our first move is the apprehension and the listing of the human needs and functions. They are 21 buildings of 288 parking spaces on the penstock and 18 buildings of 360 parking spaces in the The following seven general categories emerge: habitation, alimentation, transportation, produc- plain (a total of 12.528 parking spaces). tion, education, recreation and organization-administration. We define again these categories on the basis of a socialistic economic model and a way of living that would become gradually more Finally, just over the lines of the train and on the levee 21 catering units will be installed. and more collective. The line of the city is not a straightway; it is divided in four parts, forming four wings and three nodes. This The settlement units are of two kinds: the ones cited in the sea, on special pedestals- extensions complexity gives us the chance of adding interest by differentiations, changes of character, even surprise of the levee and the others which are cited in the plain. In addition, in the remaining installations in urban planning.

More specifically, there are houses, feeding facilities and educational centers along the city. Wing B functions as an educational-athletic center presenting a density of educational installations; the large sports venues are there. On the contrary, wing C does not have any recreation or educational centers (with the exception of two kindergartens). It functions as administrative center of the city and has a series of big central public buildings as well as a water sports center. The markets, the storages and the basic recreation centers are in wings A and D. Sports fields and amphitheaters are created between the buildings on the side of the plain. The node between the wings A and B constitutes the production center that is related to the lake (fishing dock, pisciculture, fish market, fish processing industry), whereas the one between C and D is the main entrance of the city (railway station, intercity bus station). On the contrary, the node between the wings B and C constitutes an empty urban space. At the specific point, which is the center of the settlement, we propose the placement of a park-forest, that, in combination with the hill of Magula –which is an archeological site- creates a pause on the city line.

Residences - apartment blocks

PLANS SCALE 1:500

TYPICAL LEVEL

The houses are spread around the penstock/dam. There are 97 apartment buildings made of concrete and metal with three wings each. In particular, there are: a)47 with a layout “Π” on the dam: 3 floors x(14 apartments of 40m2 +9 apartments of 80m2)= 171residents/apartment building (123 minimum, 219 maximum). Total : 8037 residents (5781 minimum, 10293 maximum) b) 37 with a layout “L” in the plain: 4 floors x(14 apartments of 40m2 +9 apartments of 80m2)= 228 residents/apartment building (164 minimum, 292 maximum). Total : 8436 residents (6068 minimum, 10804 maximum) c) 13with a layout “T” in the plain: 4 floors x(14 apartments of 40m2 +9 apartments of 80m2 )= 234 residents/apartment building (168 minimum, 300 maximum). Total : 3042 residents (2184 minimum, 3900 maximum). It results an average total of 19515 residents (14033 minimum, 24997maximum).

GROUND FLOOR

Education The general plan of the apartment buildings and their layouts in Π, L, Τ offers a gradual transition from the shared facilities of the city, through small squares and communal hallways to the private apartments. Every floor has communal laundry rooms and storage rooms. The apartments are located opposite one another aiming to the reinforcement of collective living. Initially apartments of 40m2 and 80m2 are proposed in order to cover the minimum living needs. The purpose is the reinforcement of the residents’ need to pass their time outdoors, in the public space, collectively. However, the apartments are designed so as to meet changing family requirements of users. The walls between them can be removed or added creating new units. The same can happen to the separative walls of the verandas; as the time goes by, there could be unified collective spaces available for the residents to spend the day.

12 schools (with 10 indoor sports centers): 4 elementary schools x 6 classes x 5 groups x 20 students=2400 students 4 high schools x 3 classes x 5 groups x 20 students= 1200 students 4 senior high schools x 3 classes x 5 groups x 20 students= 1200 students 11 nurseries/ kindergartens x 100 children= 1100 children

Schools

Nurseries/ kindergartens

Restaurant/food market/parking In our effort to create a new collective way of living, we concentrated the alimentation process in 21 public cores of storage, distribution and consumption. They are premises accompanied by parking buildings. They have storages and food marktes, a cafeteria, a kitchen and an eating space with 274 seats per restaurant, a total of 5.754 seats. In that way a series of “social condensers” is created on the verge of the master geographical and productive dipole, on the borderline between the lake and the plain. These units tend to replace gradually the kitchens of the apartments.

1st FLOOR

GROUND FLOOR

PLANS SCALE 1:500

2nd FLOOR

3rd FLOOR PLANS SCALE 1:500

Urban railway stations on the lake levee

ELEVATION

SECTION B-B’

SECTION A-A’ SCALE 1:250

PLANS SCALE 1:250

Parking buildings

Administration The way the city is administrated is based, as much as possible, on structures of direct democracy as neighborhood assemblies, assemblies of agricultural and trade unions, a coordination effected by the representation by elected and recallable delegates e.t.c.. In order to cover these needs, apart from the administration center, there is a series of amphitheaters scattered throughout the city (8 of type A, 12 of type B). The latter are available for any other manifestation; they are accompanied by kiosks and small convenience stores in the service of each neighborhood.

Public buildings at wing C

Amphitheatres

Fire department building (A)

Type A

Type Β

Public administration building (B)

Concert hall/exhibition centre/museum (C)

Library (D)

Medical centre (E)

Theatre (F)

PLANS SCALE 1:250

General views

Model

PARKING BUILDING IN THE CENTRE OF VOLOS GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS MEHDI SALEHI PAVLOS ARAVANTINOS ELECTIVE DESIGN STUDIO V FEBRUARY 2010

Parking building in the centre of Volos Elective design studio V, February 2010

a) An atrium which is formed by holes in each level; these holes create a gap that runs through all the floors. This space on the ground floor will be a free public space bounded by the windows of the shops. Thus, it will function as an intermediary reception space between the street and the building, introducing the visitor to the building; it also enables the visitor to have a total view of the interior through the atrium. It is possible to cross it from one side to the other because of its two entrances; in this We propose the construction of a building that will have seven floors above ground, way it serves as an alternative route for passersby. seven basement levels, and a space for a restaurant on its top. The building will also offer a big and a small shop, a small cafeteria and 303 parking places. We chose to b) The outside of the building which consists of metal, vertical blinds extending along construct a couple of car elevators- instead of a ramp- for the vertical movement its entire height. The blinds, also due to the shape of the ground plan, take the form of the vehicles, in order to save space. of a “silver, transparent curtain that undulates”. This surface gives transparency to the building and helps it to show its function to the city by presenting the cars parked The plan has as objective and method of approach the better possible connection there as a spectacle. In addition, this curtain offers to the centre of the city an exof the building both to the public space that surrounds it and to the whole city of ceptional picture which is clearly distinct from that of the rest of the buildings. Thus it Volos. For this purpose, two main design options that determine the form and the attracts interest and makes the building function as a landmark. character of the building are decided. These are: The studio’s objective is the deepening in issues of construction technology related to multifloor buildings. The aim of this project is the design of a multistory parking lot providing at least 220 parking places, on a site in the center of Volos. The building will have a significant number of underground levels created by the “top down” method. Shops will be housed on the ground floor.

Model

TV STATION/WORKSHOPS FOR COMICS AND CARTOONS GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS KLELIA NINOU ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO V JULY 2009

TV station/workshops for comics and cartoons Architecture design studio V, July 2009

The objective of the studio was to create a building which, by its architectural design, could transmit an out-of-architecture message and highlight its particular identity in a symbolic way. Therefore we had to design a theme television station the theme of which would be for us to decide. The building would be situated at the entrance of the city of Volos, on a couple of triangle plots by the flow Krafsidon and the campus of the Polytechnic School of the University of Thessaly. In particular, the new television station would have to be located on the northernmost of the two plots, while the remaining site would be planned as an open public space. Before our proceeding to the design of the new building and of the area that surrounds it, we have been asked to design a pavilion through which the new television station will be promoted and its theme and program will be advertised. Our group decided to create a television station dedicated to comics and cartoons/animation. In addition to the activities of the television production we also proposed the installation of workshops for designing and producing comic books and animation in the same building. The design was based on two main principles. These are: a) the transmission of the message of the channel (comics/cartoons) and b) the connection of the building with its outer space and also the connection of its function (production and presentation of comics, animation and television programs) with the city of Volos. The theme/identity of the station is approached and expressed by two morphological options. When someone hears about comics and cartoons, the first thing that fills his mind is colors. Therefore our first design decision was to use intense, pure colors. On a second level we understood that comics and animation are huge sets that include many and very diverse elements. Based on this thinking we decided to design a building consisting of a complex system of smaller and different units instead of a unique and clear volume. Taking into concern the above, the building was formed as a large central space constructed of glass and metal, connected to four separate sections bearing different colors. These sections are the comics production area (green), the animation production area (yellow), the offices/archive and TV program flow area (blue) and the area of shooting, montage and processing of the television programs as well as the storage room (red).Apart from their external surfaces, these volumes have elevators made of glass in the corresponding colors which constitute elements of the central space. There is also an underground

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parking marked by its orange elevator. A large, fenced open air area, available for parking the vehicles of the station as well as for the creation of scenery and large-scale projects is behind the building. The main part of the building is a reception hall where employees come together. Moreover it has a public character as it also has a cafeteria, a library of comics and children’s books and a projection room. It may also host numerous events as exhibitions, school visits, festivals etc. It has a glass facade that ensures the visual connection with the surrounding area and vertical walls-blinds that offer shade. We designed a green, open area for the remaining space of the plot. The function of this area would be complementary to that of the building. The second plot, on the edge of which the pavilion would be located, would become a square and a park containing a large playground. The design for this plot was based on two axis. The one that ends at the entrance of the building and is parallel to Athens highway (which borders with the one side of the plot) and the other that ends at the entrance of the campus of the Polytechnic School which is nearby. A series of pergolas was placed on the first axis and a cover on the other. At the point of their intersection a square with hard ground was formed, while concrete seats exist all along. Series of trees were placed on the remaining area of both plots emphasizing the connection between them.

promotion pavillion

The pavilion is a lightweight, steel, rectangular parallelepiped construction. It is designed in order to be installed at various points in the city before taking its permanent place at the corner of the building block where the new television station is situated. Activities related to cartoons, comics and animation take place in the pavilion. In addition, information on the operation of the new television station is provided. Half of the pavilion’s interior is used as a projection room. Animations are projected on the wall and the visitors can watch them while sitting on small seats designed specifically for the space. Suspended illuminated signs which show images from comic books are on the other side of the pavilion allowing small exhibitions. Lastly, a surface where the visitors can sit and paint exists at the corner of the pavilion. The paintings are recorded and simultaneously displayed on the wall of the pavilion. This is achieved by the special construction of the drawing board and the cameras attached to the roof.

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animation lab comics lab archive/emission production offices TV studios storage room

ou gr

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Model

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HYBRID: BRIDGE/LIBRARY OVER THE FLOW KRAFSIDONAS IN VOLOS GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS ELECTIVE DESIGN STUDIO I FEBRUARY 2008

Hybrid: bridge/library over the flow Krafsidonas in Volos Elective design studio I, September 2011

The objective of the studio is to create an architectural hybrid, in other words a construction that consists of two well defined and different functions which feed each other. These functions are a bridge over a flow and a small library accompanied by a reading room for the department of architecture of the University of Thessaly. The area where this construction is placed is in the city of Volos, above of the flow Krafsidon, which separates the campus of the Polytechnic School from the rest of the city, the historical centre included.

32,7x12,3x3,5m giving the impression of suspending over the flow. Thus it becomes an intense element, very easily observable.

The entrance to the library is accessed through the bridge. The library is supported by four concrete columns. The bridge stands underneath the library, between these columns. The bridge is straight and someone who only wants to cross the flow does not have to alter his course. Throughout his way he can see always the bank of the flow in front of him and the flow all around him. The bridge consists of inclined ramps; so, when approaching the middle of it, the passerby is elevated and the environment of the library Design principal of the project is to strengthen the sense of coexistence of two completely separate func- enters his field of vision and occupies a major part of it.

tions that will have to cooperate without losing their independence, without contradicting each other and without being a hindrance to each other. In order to achieve this, the sensation sought is approached and The library is separated from the bridge by glazed units which ensure the necessary soundproof and, at enhanced mainly on the level of visual experience. the same time, offer a visual on the bridge, the flow and the whole building. Indeed, by means of the big horizontal windows, the visitor has numerous views to any part of the library, and can easily overlook the For this purpose, the library is designed as a unified, clear, horizontal parallelepiped volume measuring bridge, the water, the banks of the flow and the building.

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North elevation

East elevation

South elevation

West elevation

Section A’-A

Section C-C’

Section B-B’

Section D’-D

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Structural system

1: concrete columns

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2: metal beams

3: metal cables

4: bridge and floor slabs

5: walls and roof

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APARTMENT BUILDING IN VOLOS GIORGOS PAPAGKIKAS ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO III FEBRUARY 2008

Apartment building in Volos Architectural design studio February 2008

The objective of this project is the design of an apartment block on a building site where a playground exists at present, in the city of Volos. The basic design option that forms the building is to maintain the use of this small park/ playground. In addition it intends to reverse the typical character of the open space that every greek apartment building is required to have, that is a space fenced, useless and lifeless. Therefore, the first designing movement is to create a unified open public green space on the ground floor. The building will be a surface elevated around this environment, over a pilotis, which will cover a new playground. The aim of this project is the establishment of apartments of a size of 40, 80 and 120m2. This information constitutes the second data used for the setting up of the design. The numbers 40, 80 and 120 are multiples of 20, which, in turn equals -approximately- with the square root of 4,5. The idea of creating apartments consisting of net volumes subdivided in lots of a grid with dimensions 4,5x4,5m results from this mathematical approach. The ground plan and the facade of the new building are shaped by this logic. The apartments are created by squares of a side of 4,5m that, combined, form the levels. The same happens to the open private spaces of the apartments that are designed mainly as through-and-through holes in the volumes of the apartment wings. Thus are created verandas and courtyards which offer a smooth transition from the public space of the street or of the playground to the private space of the residence. The apartments and the semi-open spaces are combined creating not only the two outer facades toward the street but also another two inner ones. These surfaces create a “background of life” for the playground through which cohabitation is attempted. The vertical movement is put on the buildings site’s corner and is open to the view and to the air. In this way the mechanism of the apartment building becomes a spectacle and its semi-public spaces seem to be the natural continuance of the outer public space. At the ground floor is a cafeteria that functions as a pole of attraction for the residents and the neighbors, reinforcing the collective habitation and the role of the park as a social condenser.

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Model with earlier approaches

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