COUNTERPOINT
Stefania Orfanidou, Gregory Petropoulos, Dora-Danai Kolokythakou
Location: Geraniou street, Athens, Greece
Workshop: Thining
Supervisor: Ilias Papageorgiou
Year: May 2017
Postgraduate Program: INSTEAD IV
University of Thessaly, Department of Architecture
In the heart of Athens, next to Omonia Square, there is Geraniou street. It consists part of a wider neighbourhood, clearly degraded, with a mixed use of houses and retail stores, most of which are currently unexploited. One of the characteristics of this area is the coexistence of different nationalities. The polymorphy and the multinational character throughout the whole axis of Geraniou street is a quality that we want to maintain and intensify.
Our proposal focuses on the possibility of an extension of Geraniou street, through a linear axis that can potentially unite Vathis Square and Theatre Square. This axis, to our composition takes the form of a strict metal structure that is attached always to one side of the buildings, thus creating a new shell or facade for them. This system is inspired by the Athenian Stoa, that we redefine and use it as a tool for a new urban condition.
Through a careful research on the typology and the current condition of each urban block, we choose in some cases to tear down entire buildings and replace them with more flexible structures, that follow the corbusian domino model or trim part of the existent facades or just to attach the axis to the existing buildings by leaving them intact. The discovery of new hidden places in the inner space of the blocks, the extension of the private life towards outdoors in the form of a “balcony to the city” and the use of the stoa model as a semi-open space that is being multiplied in vertical level, enhance the possibility for an interaction and coexistence between the citizens.
Our goal is that this new structure, that penetrates and unites the urban blocks in different levels, will create a new territory that potentially can bring together not only the passers-by with the inner space of the buildings, but also to create the conditions for a new appropriation of the spatial qualities that are being introduced.
