The ground of the city is the territory where the forces which shape and define the identities of public spaces manifest themselves. The exploration through the educational process of new approaches to the organization, design and materiality of the urban ground highlights critical issues for contemporary urban-scapes and contribute coherent architectural proposals in the discourse related to the future face of our cities.
The projects presented in this exhibition study the transformations of the city-ground through different design approaches and scales (from urban design to single buildings). They attempt, each one from its own standpoint, to re-assess the specific features of the context they insert themselves into and to produce new public situations, wherever they discover the opportunity. Some projects use "creative urban planning" interventions into unclaimed city zones, alongside transportation networks, sea fronts, and other ambiguous city grounds. Other proposals experiment with morphogenetic processes, programmatic hybridization, and construction or material techniques. Finally, there are proposals which project an experiential relationship with the built and natural landscape, either adopting the logic of environmentally conscious "soft interventions", in accordance with the landscape and the cyclic changes of seasons, or else, devising dramatic land geometries and narratives.
The whole body of work presented occupies a geographical area that exceeds the limits of South-Eastern Europe (Nicosia, Athens, Patras, Aegean, cities in Italy, Barcelona). The layout of the exhibition aims to highlight the connections of those various locations with the place where these projects originate from, the architecture school of Patras, itself. The floor and vertical surfaces of the exhibition space provide mapping clues for the reading of the exhibition, while the "table of models" is designed as a common-ground that all of the projects co-occupy. The visitor is also escorted by images and fragments of the colloquial life within the school, the presence of students and academic staff, and familiar (to us) images of the landscape surrounding our school.
© griik architects 2020