From the Room to the City: The Urban Plan
Projective Cities visiting Kaisariani, Athens, together with Mayor Christos Voskopoulos, and architects/researchers Olga Balaoura (PhD, IUAV), Elisavet Hasa (RCA) and Ioanna Piniara (AA, PhD Candidate).
In December 2019, Projective Cities staff and students travelled to Athens, marking the beginning of a collaboration with the Municipality of Kaisariani and the Mayor Christos Voskopoulos. The programme was hosted by the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, where a series of lectures, seminars and workshops were delivered by invited academics, researchers and practitioners. The city and the neighborhood of Kaisariani will serve as sites of research and design experimentation for the upcoming years, focusing on the development of new housing typologies, renovation projects and various public and collective equipments.
During the trip, students met and interviewed Dean Panayotis Tournikiotis (NTUA, School of Architecture), the architects and academics Tilemachos Andrianopoulos (NTUA, Tense Architecture Network), Olga Balaoura (IUAV), Stavros Giftopoulos, Mattheos Papavasiliou, Demetrios Issaias (NTUA, School of Architecture) Nikos Belavilas, Katerina Christoforaki, Polina Prentou (NTUA – Urban Environment Laboratory, School of Architecture), Dora Chatzi-Rodopoulou, Thanos Pagonis, Kostas Serraos (NTUA – Urban and Regional Planning), Elisavet Hasa (RCA), Thomas Maloutas (Professor of Social Geography – Athens Social Atlas), Iris Lykourioti (UTH – A Whale’s Architects), Aristide Romanos and Stavros Stavrides. These presentations and interviews will become the basis of a publication series on case studies and the programme’s external collaborations.
Moreover, students and staff visited among many others the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre by Renzo Piano, the 1970s late modernist masterpiece ‘Apartment Building in 138 Benaki Street’ by Dimitris and Susana Antonakakis, and the contemporary buildings ‘Inside-Out‘ by Nikos Ktenas and ‘Athens Blue Building’ by Demetrios Issaias and Tassis Papaioannou.
Ioanna Piniara, PhD candidate at the Architectural Association is collaborating with Projective Cities in the development of this studio and site visits.
