Based on the fact of the lack of public open spaces and on the need of amplifying the cultural tissue of Volos, an urban model is being suggested that could be permeated in the whole city connecting each cultural point to the other. This model is characterized by lining which connect factitiously the Pelion Mountain with the port, the two natural characteristics of the city that have shaped it for centuries.
The area of interference consists of four blocks, around the Analipseos, Chatziargiri, Koutarelia and Konstanta streets. Each of these blocks has a particular character; the first has high multi-dwelling houses that create a deep and dark vacant site. The second has multi-dwelling houses and one-family houses that create a vacant site in levels due to some elevated yards. The third is constituted by high multi-dwelling houses which are facing low one-family houses creating an oblong and narrow vacant site. In the fourth block stands the theater of the Old Electric Power Plant and the Dance School of the Municipality of Volos.
The interference proposal is constituted by the creation of an air route on the blocks that are under interference. At the same time, the integration of the vacant sites of the above blocks is suggested with the simultaneous creation of levels to be planted. The ramp that runs this area perforating the blocks, encounters on the left and on the right spaces that the residents of the area can gather there in order to fill their spare time productively. The route ends in the theater of the Old Electric Power Plant in the footpath of R. Fereou Street where it perforates the building in order to lead to the theater square and there becomes one with the ground.
The ramp constitutes the public part of the suggested urban model, a part that enters to spaces without disturbing their privacy since it does not come in direct contact with them. The ground of the vacant sites constitutes the private part of the proposal since it is shaped into yards for the residents of the block. The ramp during its route encounters spaces of cultural- recreational character for the residents of the area (painting – pottery workshops, exhibition center, meeting place, playground, photography workshop, projection room). The theater of the Old Electric Power Plant is at the end of the route, which is reconfigured with the ramp passing by it and ending inside the suggested building of the dance school. In the same block, the creation of a square with levels in which the history of the urban route is integrated is being suggested.
In a city that lacks public open spaces and that is characterized by fragmentation of cultural- social activities, the suggested urban model comes to enliven, to vivify the dead urban space, to create elevations of public open spaces in order to end in the sea of Volos, in the Pagasitikos Gulf. It also helps in the strengthening of the social relations among the residents of the blocks generating poles of cultural- recreational activities in the neighborhood level. It passes from the minor scale – vacant site and residents’ privacy- to the big scale – square, public park – combining them in a game of reading of the urban space, discovering it and usurpation of it from the beginning that if we look it again it can create new relationships, new dipoles, and new approaches in our cities.