The contemporary Greek
city is comprised with small building blocks in a dense network of narrow
streets, where green spaces are small and fragmented if any at all. The call
for proposals asked for the creation of a new, larger building block, by
merging 4 existing building blocks into one (building blocks X 4, Thessaloniki
X 4). The deriving X or cross shape of the included streets combined with other
unused patches of land constitutes the design focus of the competition.
The pilot project aims
at proposing a new way of experiencing the city by its inhabitants, emphasizing
in housing areas. The objective is to create varying public spaces via an urban
toolbox so as to reinstate the lost neighborhood sensation and at the same time
create a new fast growing eco system of vertical green areas which contribute
to the microclimate and offer new safe habitats for multiple bird species which
have been drawn away by uncontrolled city growth.
The contemporary Greek
city is articulated around one circulation network, that of the vehicles.
Bicycles and pedestrians navigate parallel to this network on either side. By
combining the cross shaped streets (“cross form”) of the merged building blocks
at an urban scale, a 2nd, continuous circulation grid is introduced
for bikes and pedestrians which will spread across the city, facilitating fast
and safer movement away from vehicular traffic. Furthermore, the proposal
integrates the open air spaces situated inside the existing building blocks, in
order to shift the city experience by creating a 3rd circulation
grid, for pedestrians only. Thus the deprived “back yard” spaces of the inside
of the building blocks are transformed and interconnected via a series of
continuous winding alleys which introduce the idea of urban hiking, a green
space for walking and other outdoor activities away from vehicles and vehicular
noise.
To insure the pilot
character of the proposal, the “worst- case” scenario was employed, by choosing
a super dense deprived urban area with a total lack of green spaces. In this
context the design introduced the idea of the urban toolbox, a series of flex-
tools able to adjust to any site specific need both for the chosen building
blocks as well as for any other given cluster of building blocks in the greater
city area. These flexible stand alone tools are contextual derivatives of ideas
and elements that have shaped the contemporary Greek city in recent decades and
thus are not alien to the Greek cityscape. These tools are the “Alana” (term
describing an open air space for outdoor activities mainly for children), the
street market, the pergola, the underground parking space, the bench cluster
and finally the adaptable floor. The latter, shapes the already mentioned 2nd
and 3rd circulation grids, adapts to the new grid hierarchy and
gradually dissolves into green spaces. All the other tools of the toolbox can
connect in numerous ways on this floor. At the place of connection a unique
joint is formed under the influence of the connecting tool and the site
specifics.