Academic Portfolio

Thanos Stavelas Architect

Athens, GR thanost.st6@gmail.com

Thanos Stavelas works portfolio

P.U.L.S.

Parasitic Urban Leisure Structures

The ever-growing city keeps destroying “natural” leisure landscapes, while modernization and industry produce character-less, exiled, residual spaces throughoutitscore.Couldthesespacesbecome alternative leisure landscapes, using their negative (urban) conditions to their advance, ultimately producing memorable experiences? Three such parasitic structures are built.

The rstisanurban bath,aretreatwhere visitors get rid of stress and practice self - and interpersonal - connection, amid a chaotic, machine–ruled site.

The second, an urban “beach”, based on island-like sites trapped between highways and the constant white noise frequency caused by “waves of traf c”, nally creating a space to rest and “tune into”.

The third collects, lters, and reflects the erratic lights of moving traf c onto the night sky, creating a dynamic “astral” spectacle, made for “stargazing”, brought to the urban age.

Ultimately, noisy sites give birth to much-needed retreats, constant noise is utilized as a common and universal frequency, and car lights (which have obscured our night skies), compose a “neo-natural” astral phenomenon in our post-human world.

Between The Lines: Programme, Consumption & the City (Research Thesis)

This thesis studies unof cial, unplanned programmes in the city, in an environment where expansion, logistic needs, consumerism - and architects themselves -have fully imposed strict and speci c de nitions. It focuses on the study of groups, practices and phenomena that create new programmes and use, in an organic, user-centered way, for and by the users.

Furthermore, it examines how of cial and unof cial, “new” programmes, cause rivalries, conflict, media attention, political, and even legal disputes.

All these major points are further explored through two case studies in the city of Patra:

An urban staircase which is made redundant as it turns into a party venue on weekends and the square in front of a church, where churchgoers and skaters are at war, trying to accept its double function; monument at day, skating rink at night.

VPN

Vertical Private Neighborhoods 2018

The city of Patra in Greece boasts amazing views due to its amphitheatric shape. Dozens of viewports in its centerhavebecome knownsocialhotspots and romantic photo-ops. When deciding to build high in a such a place, one must consider the visual relationship between building and city wanderers. Furthermore,smallcitiesandtheirscale arebasedonneighborhoods,yardsand easy access to land and space. VPN is an effort to build high n a place where views and ground activities are of the utmost importance.

Inthiscontext,VPNisanobjectshaped by famous viewpoints: multiple 3-story gaps are a way of giving a window of the view back to the city. At the same time, its twisting shapemakes for different perceptions, depending on where you stand – no view or façade is ever repeated, nor is any floor plan.

Finally,itsbigopen-airgapscreatesmall neighborhoods of townhouses with a shared yard, eliminating dark hallways, small elevator landings and awkward in-between spaces. VPN is made for co-living and socializing. Its residents enjoy a handful of earthly activities –gardens, hammocks, running with their pets., etc…- practically in the sky, with jaw-dropping vistas.

SILO 57 – 2018

The city of Patra has always been carried by industry. Up till the 1950s, industry changed and expanded what once was an old fort by the sea. After de-industrialization, the city turned to a new kind of industry: education. Thousands of students enroll in its universities and technical schools, and, while living there, spend money on services, goods, and local businesses, providing new income.

The objective of this project was to combine this new industry with unused relics of the former industry. SILO 57 is a student housing project, situated in anoldflourfactory,usingitsmainstructure. Inspired by an iconic “parasitic” bridge seen on the site of the façade, the new design approach is based on parasites and viruses, which use the structure of the host, while also forming new structures. Perforated metal grids and glass shape new spaces inside this vastbuilding, oancehauledbysilosand machinery.

The original structure’s DNAisnowmutatedandreplicatedinvariousforms,as the “design parasite” chooses the most ef cient way of inhabiting its concrete shell.

CONCRETE JUNGLE - 2016

Concrete Jungle is a family-oriented project which combines housing with a very public playground, right in the center of the city. All apartment units are designed for different kinds of families, depending on their size and needs for open-air space.

Its main structure is based on the branches of a tree; one common stairway and elevator core branches out to each individual apartment through suspended walkways. “Branches” and apartment outlines are never repeated, but are irregularly shaped, so that this complexity gives off an interesting view while going up – the core looks like a tree trunk branching out.

Toprotectresidentsfromtheintensecity noise,thestructureiswrappedwithaset of perforated aluminum panels, which combat both unwanted sounds and the gazeofonlookersandby-passersofthe busy site. Panels open and close depending on needs and mood, creating alivingfaçade,sometimesfriendlywhile othersuninviting.Thegroundfloorplayground is also equipped with rides inspired by raw industrial materials. The vast use of concrete, its tree-like structure and the “jungle” cries heard from the playground have rightfully justi ed the project’s name.

SALTSCAPE – 2017

This salt museum is based right outside the city of Messolongi, in a site where the sea meets the salt lake ecosystem and the salt farms. This trifecta of use createsaninterchange,whichisthebasis of the floor plan. One big courtyard forms the central point of reference for all movement across its three levels.

Three main exhibitions are “planted” on each side of the museum, themed after each of the uses: treasures of the seabed, ecosystem knowledge and, nally, salt farming and extraction. Through a series of ups and downs, museum routes are designed to give a full perspective of the site and the triple character of the area, while also allowing constant options for changing one’s route, mixing routes, or even skipping parts of them altogether.

This dune-shaped building, partly buried under the ground, allows visitors and locals to climb its roof, treat it like landscape, and experience panoramic vistas.

thank you.