P O R T F O L I O
Theoni
Selected Works
years 2021-2024
personal info
nationality - greek
date of birth - 19/02/99
2 Av. Aristide Briand 92220 Bagneux, France
contact info
mail- tgkesiou@gapps.auth.gr
mail- theogkesioy@gmail.com phone- (+30) 6981825383, (+33)
hortus conclusus
incompatible scenarios, blurred traces and a lost garden
Design Diploma Thesis personal project
Supervisor: Dimitris Gourdoukis september 2024.
One kilometer west of the Top Hane fortress, along the coastline - from the late 19th century until World War II- there was a walled garden known as Behtsinar. Testimonies from local residents describe it as a small paradise within the city of Thessaloniki. Over time, however, Behtsinar was gradually consumed by warehouses and industrial facilities, with the expansion of the port and the railway network threatening its existence from the early years of its history. Today, this mythical garden has almost faded from collective memory.
The western edge of Thessaloniki has since taken the name Behtsinar in honor of the lost garden, but it remains one of the most degraded areas of the city, undermining its overall image. The core of this project lies in combining the site’s current state with the memory of the original garden, creating a dialogue between the past and the present urban reality. In this context, the concept of the enclosed garden serves as a reference point, exploring how its relationship with the contemporary urban and industrial landscape can be redefined.
By reimagining the traditional boundaries of the enclosed garden, the project redefines its role in modern urban life. It challenges the rigid separation between nature and architecture, proposing a more integrated, harmonious relationship that revitalizes both the physical space and the social fabric of the area. Through this synthesis, the design promotes new forms of collective experience, creating a meaningful interaction between visitors, the built environment, and the natural landscape.
*hortus conclusus: latin term | enclosed garden*
garden definition
enclosed condition
redifining the relationship between the gardenand the building
boundary expansions/ creation of a new typology
Although this area is located close to the city center, the western waterfront exhibits a striking sense of isolation. An intangible dividing line seems to interrupt the city's flow. This "urban rupture" generated the need for an intervention to reconnect the area with the active urban fabric.
perpective section (up) | strategies diagram (down)
[ u n i f i c a t i o n ] of the external and internal environment
[ i n t e r v e n t i o n ] of nature within the building’s shell
The concept of the enclosed garden serves as a reference point, exploring how its relationship with contemporary urban and industrial environments can be redefined. Initially, the garden is framed as a distinct, enclosed space, following its traditional typology. However, this limited structure is gradually re-evaluated through its interaction with the building and the surrounding urban area.
Thus, the garden is no longer an isolated space clearly separated from its surroundings. Instead, its boundaries become fluid, extending both inward and outward, "leaking" beyond the confines originally set for it. These boundaries are no longer static but dynamic, allowing the garden to coexist with the industrial context that surrounds it.
The proposal centers around developing a new architectural typology that reinterprets the traditional concept of the enclosed garden. The goal was to expand the garden’s boundaries and present it as an integral part of the overall design, rather than as an isolated or autonomous space. Through this synthesis, the building and the garden merge to create a unified "urban object," where the structure integrates with the surrounding landscape, and nature flows into
the built environment, dissolving the rigid distinction between the natural and the artificial.
This approach transforms a portion of the industrial port landscape into an active public space that promotes exploration. The garden no longer serves as a mere decorative feature; it becomes the symbolic and functional center of the site. Through this integration, the area assumes a new identity and social relevance, en-
hancing the potential for collective experiences.
This concept invites visitors to engage creatively, encouraging collaboration and fostering new ways of interaction within the revitalized urban environment.
“The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginnings of antiquity”
- Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, third principal
museum of the Giacometti Foundation
Dominique Perrault Architecture | Internship
Project Design Phase | Aerogare et Esplanade des Invalides Supervisor: David Agudo july 2024.
The new ‘museum and school of the Giaccometti Foundation’ elegantly merges historical preservation with contemporary design, reflecting an evolution from the building’s origins at the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. The architectural strategy emphasizes the coexistence of old and new, seamlessly integrating a contemporary volume within the shell of the well known ‘Aerogare des Invalides’. This adaptability is further enhanced by the addition of an intermediate level, creating introverted spaces that foster contemplation.
Beyond serving as a museum, the building will house ateliers, art rooms, and conference spaces, creating a vibrant, multifaceted cultural hub. This visionary approach transforms the museum into a dynamic cultural and social epicenter, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the creative process. By integrating interactive art-making spaces, the project encourages guests to transition from passive observers to active participants, fostering a deeper connection to art and the artistic community. This reimagined museum experience celebrates collaboration and creativity, offering a compelling new way to engage with and appreciate art.
*note: all project representations have been adapted by the author to meet the requirements of the current portfolio*
strategies | design axes
coexistence of the old and the new addition of a contemporary volume
adaptability within the building’s shell addition of an intermediate level
introversion double skin in the exhibition spaces
a dialogue between the empty and the monumental
The new roof is designed as an artistic act, a sculpture, a mute and immobile volume. This monolith speaks its own language, that of sculpture; and is subtly integrated into the monumental context of the Esplanade des Invalides. This abstract architectural gesture, the Gisant, reinterprets the silhouette of the historic building while delicately revealing itself in the landscape.
Inside, the building retains its primitive decorations. The columns with Ionic capitals of the side pavilions are revealed as well as the masonry piers of the nave and their sculpted canopies; the table decorations of the peripheral walls; and above all the vast ceiling assembly of flat glass roofs and peripheral arches.
internship contribution
During the internship, I had the opportunity to delve into the design processes and representations showcased in this portfolio. Each representation and image has been thoughtfully modified to emphasize personal contributions to the project. In the design phase, my responsibilities were generating and applying ideas, developing construction plans and detailed drawings, and creating 3D visualizations and concept diagrams.
s t r y p e r
Object- e Architecture | Junior Architect
Competition entry for the re-design of the metro station in Kolonaki square, Athens, Greece
Theoni Gkesiou | Mairi Natsou supervisor: Dimitris Gourdoukis september 2023.
S t r y p e r is a proposal for the design of the square and metro entrance in Kolonaki, Athens. The design begins with the creation of a continuous field that extents up to the buildings located on all sides of the square. The field is defined by parallel lines that function as a reminder of the ancient traces of agricultural activity that were found during the excavation for the metro entrance. The lines follow the slope of the site. Within the field of the stripes, several islands are located that become independent but at the same time interconnects focal points: An island that hosts the three existing sculptures, another for the metro stairs and for the elevator and a larger one that becomes a ‘square within the square’.
personal project
new architecture school articulations new building,part of the university of thessaloniki july 2021.
Architecture is a field that creates connections between the public and the private, the inside and the outside. In an architecture school, we experience dipoles. Formal and informal situations coexist, a private space can become public while public spaces can function as spaces of intimacy. Thus, our main idea was to follow this interesting condition and to approach the building as a threshold between the public and the private. Private life gets involved with the public space creating a permanent “public festival”. Walking from the space infront of the building that functions as a square, the visitor (student, professor, passenger) passes through different levels of privacy. From the square to the semi-public foyer -also alternative exhibition space- too the atrium and lastly to the studios, we create a path where the user moves from the outside to the inside, from the public to the private - and vice versa.
The studio spaces communicate with a courtyard, an atrium that functions as the heart of the building. In this space, the building acts as a protection of the private life of the students. It runs through its core, its heart. It encloses the designing and learning process. However, the foyer, which is caracterized by transparency, functions as a transitional space between the atrium and the square. Through this approach, the atrium is transformed into a porous boundary that keeps the plaza and the studios in contact. It acts as a
between private and public.
dream images virtual spaces and desiring- machines
Research Diploma Thesis
Awarded | “Best Architectural works of 2023” by Archisearch february 2023.
Research thesis “dream images, virtual spaces and desiring machines” aims to prove that the different methods of representing the space - by exploring the virtual - reveal a creative power, capable of approaching new visions of space, potential realities, and images reminiscent of dreams.
“Meaning created links so numerous, so rich and involved that only esoteric knowledge could possibly have the necessary key. Objects became so weighed down with attributes, connections, and associations that they lost their own original face. Meaning was no longer read in an immediate perception, and accordingly objects ceased to speak directly: between the knowledge that animated the figures of objects and the forms they were transformed into, a divide began to appear, opening the way for a symbolism more often associated with the world of dreams.”
Michel Foucault, History of Madness
key words// desire, spatial reality, paradox, Deleuze and Guattari, dream
Introduction
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in their work, refer to desire as a process of creation. Contrary to the psychoanalytic theory where it is defined as “lack”, they attribute to desire a positive and productive dimension. To them, desire is responsible for creating a virtual domain of images. According to Deleuze and Guattari the virtual productions of desire compose representations. Thus, architectural plansbeing a special case of representation – could be approached as an assemblage of desires. On some occasions, they have the ability to create a new kind of reality -often not through the realization of the architectural space they describe.
This paper documents how an «architectural image» may render qualities detached from the real space. The union of the actual and the virtual that occurs with the architectural representations, is also the main characteristic of the dream. Therefore, through the productive role of desire, the paper constitutes an attempt to approach the relationship between representation and the condition of dreaming.
Their symbiotic relationship lies in the fact that in both situations, the real and the immaterial converge, while the forms that are constructed transcend the real space but always depend on it.
Consequently, the first part of this thesis is the analysis of the basic concepts around the representation and the dream that define the theoretical framework of the research. After this analysis, it outlines the work of architects who - through different representational media - have created “dreamlike” images, rendering an architecture that stimulates the senses and reflects their desires. The present research redefines the concept of representation, highlighting cases where it is linked to a design experimentation leading to spatial images that - as in dreams - emerge as creative products of “desiring machines”.
The aim of the work is to prove that the different methods of representing the space - by exploring the virtual - reveal a creative power, capable of approaching new visions of space, potential realities, and images reminiscent of dreams.
immaterial
wierd
paradoxical
magical
dreamlike
regular
material
tangible
accomplished
realized
understandable
museum of
humanity food and its discontents
Architecture Biennale of Tallin 2022
Edible; Or, The Architecture of Metabolism march 2022
In this speculative exploration of a non-human future, the relationship between humanity and food undergoes a profound transformation, exposing conflicts between personal autonomy and societal norms. Against the backdrop of an impending global crisis in food production, access, waste, and environmental degradation, the narrative unveils a stark reality where issues of racial and economic injustice intersect with unsustainable consumption patterns. As the world grapples with the challenge of feeding a growing population, the project envisions a shift towards innovative food production methods, blurring the lines between architecture and agriculture. Through a lens of speculative fiction, it prompts reflection on humanity’s role in shaping the future of food and questions who ultimately holds power in this narrative of resilience.
School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Instructors/ Dimitris Kontaxakis, Dimitris Gourdoukis, Giorgos Dimopoulos
Project Participants/ Alexia Anastasiadi, Elisavet Bazioni, Efi Chatzikonstantinou, Eleftheria Chedieoglou, Theocharis Dospras, Magda Faleka, Theoni Gkesiou, Beatrice Kiouzepi-Demertzidou, Areti Lachana, Margarita Lekka, Lambrini Mertiri, Anastasia Noula, Konstantina Papadiamanti, Eleonora Papanikolaou, Georgia Theiakou
Manifesto/
Theoni Gkesiou, Dimitris Gourdoukis
In a non-human future, the contradictions of the ways humans used to relate to the concept of food become a curious display between individuality and conformity on a hall of corridors and objects in an all-too-human fashion. Formerly oppressed subjects are roaming around trying to process the incomprehensible.
By 2050 it is expected that the human population will reach 9 billion initiating an ominous era concerning food production, food access, food waste and environmental pollution.
It looks like things didn’t work out.
Today, food is often linked with racial and economic injustice considering that colored people are primarily influenced by malnutrition associated with the lack of access to nutritious food. At the same time, part of the population is affected by obesity due to overprocessed food. It seems that the future of food will be evolving in two divergent directions. Some of them are bigger than others.
As the world population grows steadily, meeting food needs is a challenge. Yet, food waste is still an active pathogenesis. Every day, hundreds of fruits and vegetables are thrown away on terms of being inelegant, colorless, repulsive, ugly. It is reminiscent of a narrative between episodes of bad habits.
The attempts to maximize food production have begun. However, that often leads to solutions based on animal cruelty and resource depletion. In 28 years from now – until 2050 – food production beyond and above water level must change direction. Overfishing scenarios or dystopian images of meat industries are no longer acceptable.
Architecture and the food sector share common tropes in terms of waste. On the edge of urban settlements, we find landfills, crucibles of materials reminiscent of abandoned worlds. Metabolism may present an alternative. You build what you eat, you are what you build.
Understanding food processes is valuable. Food is life. Non-consumption ultimately leads to the creation of microorganisms. This final stage of food is at the same time the beginning of a new life, consisting of unicellular and multicellular organisms. Nothing is useless. There are spaces in between. Perhaps we can occupy them?
Technology and science have become protagonists for our salvation regarding the food challenge. Technological advancements and innovations such as tower gardening, hydroponics and aeroponics techniques, manure processing areas and animals’ monitoring create a new dynamic reality for the food sector. Innovative ways of farming create a new system giving the concept of the farm a character of an urban laboratory or even that of a factory.
There used to be a concept of constantly moving forward; where everything was supposed to be getting better.
After all, who is on display. Us or them?
Theoni Gkesiou
MArch Architect | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Engineering, Dep. Architecture
Content created during educational and professional development in architecture and design