Morfou Cultural Center
2012, Morfou
Type: Architectural Competition
Prize: 3rd prize
Size: 1500 m²
Status: Ideas-drafts
Architect: Giannis Papadopoulos
THE COMPETITION
Morphou is a town in the western central valley of Cyprus, in the occupied area. The Morphou Municipality has for the last 38 years been housed temporarily in various spaces in the free area of Cyprus.
The municipality’s aim for the multipurpose center is to house the history, cultural traditions and customs of the town.
This way the entity and identity of the Morphites(which unfortunately today is in danger of alienation or even extinction) will be strengthened and preserved.
The plot is in a quiet area of Nicosia, surrounded by ground-floor houses. The plot’s characteristic is dense vegetation and large trees.
The basic requirements of the competition were to harmoniously integrate the cultural center with its surroundings while preserving the large trees, as well as offering the possibility for the building to be constructed in two phases.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The building is a cross-shaped arrangement of spaces with a central courtyard. This archetypical structure responds to multiple prerequisites of the competition:
- Scale
The building develops onto the main compositional element which is the footprint of a cross.This way the building follows the scale of its surroundings (mostly ground-floor houses) as it appears with its smaller and more adaptable parts on the fronts of the streets, following the axes of the city.
- Trees: adjusting to the plot’s shape
The new ‘cross-shaped’ building develops in the plot leaving most of the large trees intact while adjusting to the irregularities of the plot’s shape.
- Public space: Collective Memory
Special attention was given to the design of the public space:It is organised to penetrate gradually through the space of the central courtyard into the heart of the new building, making it an integral part of the building proposal. The courtyard is open to the street in a controlled way, as the concrete brise-soleil functions as a “filter” of air, light and visual access between the private and the public realms.Therefore,a public space created which is open to the neighborhood while providing the appropriate privacy for the users of the building.
The courtyard is the main architectural expression of collectivity and in this case, the activator of collective memory.
Additionally, the courtyard allows a multitude of public activities to take place: lectures, outdoor exhibitions, events etc.
- Dynamic presence
Complementing the courtyard –which is the core of collective memory and thus the embodiment of the relationship to the past–the sections of the cross turn or “point” dynamically to pilotis and cantilevers,with big openings to the city, to the future and to “the path of the return”.
- Development in two phases
To allow for the possible construction of the building in two phases, which was a prerequisite of the competition, the properties of the cruciform were utilized in order to unimpededly extend its sections in the second phase. Therefore, upon the completion of Phase A the central building is already autonomous in terms of function, construction and form. For the construction of Phase B, the extension of the northern section is proposed.
- Materials
Materials are used in their natural colors: Limestone masonry, fair-faced concrete, concrete blocks, anodized aluminium frames.
