EIA Aksios

2010, Thessaloniki

Type:  European Architectural Competition

Prize:  Honorable mention

Size:  3157 m²

Status:  Ideas-drafts

Architects:  Georgia Daskalaki, Giannis Papadopoulos

Architects collaborators:  Maria Tsiouri, Vasiliki Maltezaki, Vasilis Papadopoulos

Architecture students:  Demetris Anastasiades

Consultant civil engineer:  Thanos Giannimaras

Consultant mechanical engineer:  Fanis Angelopoulos

The central idea is the creation of a settlement with functional, social and symbolic dimensions.

Basic objectives:

-The basic concept of a collaborating community of residences

-The pursuit for a clear and flexible spatial production system able to produce units which can be “adapted” in response to orientation and scale and the needs of each resident. The methodology also seeks to achieve both standardization and recognizability/originality for each residence.

-Thus, a multi-dimensional grid is used as a design tool and a space-production method,which also helps distinguish the zones of circulation,open-spaces and residences.

The dwellings are organised around a central pedestrian street running throughout the project which is the main dense social core of the composition.

The whole project is directly related to the pedestrian street, making the composition very self-referential: the built environment and public space constitute a “tight” inseparable part where the public and the private are in constant “dialogue”. The form and typologies of smaller urban spaces of the pedestrian street refer to the structure and function of traditional settlements: passages, galleries, terraces.

The pedestrian street is organised on two levels and includes all public functions and activities of the complex:the entrances to the dwellings, meeting points, playtime and small-events outdoor spaces along its length. At the same time all the dwellings with their yards, turn towards the surrounding streets as well as to the pedestrian street.

The pedestrian street thus functionally and symbolically constitutes the ‘backbone’ and the key referential axis of the composition: anew landmark in the area, given the current undeveloped surrounding environment.