[ Anticipating the Unexpected ]
March II
Abandonment in Athens creates conditions of sealed voids within the city. At the scale of the city, insertions inside the shells of abandoned buildings offer opportunities for occupation and interaction in the realm of open public space. Opening these voids of the city allows for the spirit of procession to flow through the skin of the city and adds new layers of identity to the historic sites. Ideas and identities are carried along the streets of the city and find residence inside the folds of enclosure. Spaces are created in the city which have pragmatic uses, yet are still open to all users of the city and allow for authentic exchanges to occur. No strong political stance is imposed on users, rather spaces are created for opportunity and occupation where the visibility of the street is united with responses to the needs of the city. The element of programmatic indeterminacy in both interventions allows a flexibility which will help the spaces maintain relevance in post-crisis Athens.
[ Occupying the Enclosure ]
Housing adjacent to Omonia Square carries concepts from the insertion of a theatre in the former Attikon Cinema building and applies them to vastly different programmatic requirements. Levels of occupation sediment on the site as long term and transient individuals occupy the same space. An internal public square continues from Omonia and creates another, more temporal, level of occupation by the city. Influenced by the notations of the city, the foldedwalls of enclosure extend and retract to create residential units of varying scales, in an effort to accommodate many types of users. Privacy becomes a common resource as the public is able to traverse the circulation of the building, while under protest conditions, the roof space becomes its own place of gathering, allowing a new vantage point of the procession.