The utopia – meeting
The meeting in a place, creates a time that temporarily emerges from the different identities of the people involved. People tell their stories, testimonials, from the journey, the borders, their stay in a place. Usually we carve the stories of these journeys on maps, we discover, we map the routes of “before and after” (where we came from and where we want to go, the routes of family, friends, the routes of the neighborhood).
For a few hours, an ephemeral community is created with very different people, who permanently or temporarily are on the same place but would not have met otherwise. The borders of gender, race, religion, economic status tend to disappear through the meeting. Gifts are exchanged such as the ephemeral sculpted bread that was offered in the beginning of the action “the Good will come from the sea.” The meeting is a utopia for the community to come. Utopia becomes action in the doorstep of diversity.
Location: Koulouri Square, Gazohori
Along with the children of 87th intercultural primary school, a playground was designed in an empty plot across the main square which belongs to the municipality. Construction –action was implemented with soil, ropes, nets etc. Before the action we made collage designs and maquettes inside the school along with the children during the entire school year.
Location: reception Centre of asylum seekers in Lavrio
The apolis (citiless) keep increasing in the modern metropolis as more and more people leaving their place of origin. Without papers, refugees, immigrants, unemployed, homeless, marginalized groups, live as exiles in the postmodern metropolis, in its gaps. These cut-out environments are scattered, changing and fluid, as they are produced by the city itself and its transformations. Vacant spaces in the state of the right and generally in the idea of belonging. In such spaces that function as shelters within the city, the architect’s opinion is canceled and another opinion is formed, that of the fleeting, fluid, physical habitation. During this habitation features of community life are created- and these sites create another network that extends from the heart of the city up to the distant periphery.
Continue reading
Location: Koulouri Square, Gazohori
It began from an anthropological and experiential research-study of the Gazohori area. The title “I beg you not to tear down my world,” came from the graffiti of a child written in the local Turkish dialect. Our goal was the involvement in community life, the understanding of its dynamics as well as the understanding of how the capital penetration affects daily life.