The subject of the diploma work concerns the study and planning of the Nicosia’s academic cultural centre. The subject is result of the need for the creation of a cultural centre in the university campus, which will serve the intensification of culture, for the students and residents of the city.

The building brief of the cultural centre includes amongst other facilities, an indoor amphitheatre with maximum capacity of 1000 individuals. Official ceremonies, graduations, congresses, theatrical plays, operas, concerts and movies could be hosted. It will also host, permanent and periodical art exhibitions.

The objective of this study, is to create of a cultural centre which converses with existing and the under study buildings of the campus in a harmonic manner within the general master plan. Also the flexibility of the building brief will encourage and strengthen the creativity of students.

The building brief aimed to serve the needs both, the university and the city too. Properly equipped areas will be used by the citizens for learning and teaching of various Cypriot traditional arts. The operations that coexist in the building can also be used autonomously. In this way various activities can take place in the building at the same time. The surrounding area of the building has been designed as a cultural square which visitors will find it interesting to cross.

The academic cultural centre is the only building of the campus that is directly associated with the city of Nicosia. City and university are responsible for any activities that unfold in the academic cultural centre. Students and citizens (main characters of these activities) function as energy carriers that channel their energy in the cultural centre which assembles, transforms, evolves and then defuses this energy.

This process was identified and managed as a natural explosion. The plot topography is the continuation of the natural landscape (hill and valley) that exists on its eastern limits. Taking tectonics as a base, treated the plot as a lot of layers in which a vertical force is applied, from below to above, and this caused sudden rupture and lift of the tectonic plates. The height of the lift, is relative to their distance from the centre of explosion. The explosion created a crack that crosses and separates the plot in two parts.

The centre of explosion is located in the near centre of the plot at its lowest altitude. The segregation of plates was determined by axes that were engraved in the plot, following the limits of the surrounding buildings and also by the movement of pedestrians in the space. The upraised plates cover the actual spaces of the cultural centre. The building brief and the space requirements also affect as a second force, which determine the final height of the lifted up plates. The crack that is created, runs through the centre of the explosion, and is directed from north to south. It constitutes the main axis of movement within the cultural centre by crossing the plot it disturbs the ground and deforms the plates on both sides of the axis.

The cultural centre is constituted by two big volumes with sloped roofs and a third volume in the southern side that connects them. The axis of movement that crosses the plot brakes through these volumes. The surrounding areas of the buildings are constituted by inclined surfaces.

 The final form is actually the result of the whole explosive process that freezes for a moment in time.