The project of this thesis concerns the construction of a mediatheque – multimedia library building in the city of Volos. The term “mediatheque” was used for the first time in the 80s, in order to express in a more specific way the variety of media stored by libraries (mostly audiovisual material). The wide spread of Internet in the following years though, greatly diminished their effect on users. Therefore, it is a reasonable question how this mediatheque building would be useful and functional in the city of Volos and what kind of activities should be included in it.

The mediatheque of this project is part of a wider network of mediatheque buildings, constructed in large Greek cities. Each one of these buildings provides access to physical means and digital forms of information. Moreover it functions as a place of creativity, providing the necessary technological means and the necessary space for the development of works of digital art and interactive installations. These forms of art are exhibited in the exhibition room of the mediatheque where they were produced or in any other building of the network. The greater desired achievement is that the mediatheque will function as a “digital hub” inside the city, transforming the role of its users from receivers to producers of information.

The site that was chosen for the construction of the building is situated in the centre of Volos. The building site has an area of 500m2 and is facing the Dimitriados street. On the other sides of the site are situated the Spiridi street, the pedestrian street Skenderani and 2 adjacent buildings. The uses of space inside the building were developed by studying similar buildings, constructed in other countries, and by adding or removing uses and spaces, depending on the needs of this particular mediatheque, considering its construction in the city of Volos and in this specific building site. The building contains space for workshops in the basement, a large exhibition room on the ground floor, a library on the first floor, a mediatheque on the second one, an amphitheater on the third and offices and a room of Virtual Reality on the fourth.

The form of the building was developed considering the digital form of information that would be stored inside the building and regarding the ambition that the audience will produce their own new information in the form of digital arts. The route that someone has to follow online in order to find “information” is controversial to the simplicity and the solid form of the information as a term. This route of searching has inspired the design of the firm concrete spaces that are used mostly for the movement of people inside the building. These spaces are situated on the perimeter of the site and on different levels of height. The user of the mediatheque walks inside them until he reaches the spaces that will provide him the information he seeks. These concrete blocks also function as the static body of the building, while the floors of rest spaces are lightweight constructions based or hung from it.