Athens, Gazi, Vasiliou the Great street, Dyaleon street, Gefireiou street, Achniadon street.
Achniadon 24, there is situated the building that houses from 1932 the settings workshop of the former Royal and present National Theatre. Our proposal concerns the transformation of the building into a scenography school with spaces open to public, as exhibition spaces, library, cafe, theatre.
The workshop was initially an orthogonal one-storied stone building and later a two-storied T shaped building that was always situated in the centre of the block, where in one typical block we find the open space of the blocks of flats.
The surrounding low houses of the block and the empty sites give their place in blocks of flats. The building progressively loses optical contact with the street.
Our proposal gives to the block the communal space that is needed, without removing a building which place and use can become a important pole of attraction for a developing region.
The idea of architectural composition follows the logic with which the building was extended up to now. It is based on the preservation of the skin of the existing building and on its extension with oblong volumes that penetrate the skin of the building with a purpose to reach the street. Our proposal tries to anticipate the further hemming of the building from blocks of flats, extending in neighbouring empty sites or sites with abandoned houses.
The site had already facets in the two longer sides of the block, defining an axis perpendicular to the basic volume of the building. In our proposal we draw another axis from side to side at the other dimension, creating entries at the four sides of the block. The axis begins from a wide ramp that leads in the building, to a 20 metre high free space, roofed with a glass ceiling, that constitutes also the core of the building. In this space there is a small theatre with bleachers that scale to the cafe. All these spaces, along with exhibition spaces and a library are open to the public also. Parallel to the axis, a glass oblong volume with ramps, that "rip" the big compact volume, is positioned.
Regarding the interior of the building, closed individual spaces were needed, thus exploiting the height of 8 metres of two floors of the building, we create metal "boxes" close to the human scale in order to ensure auxiliary spaces, exhibition spaces, offices of professors but mainly spaces for teaching.