The basic idea of the project “Steps towards the water” is the pattern generated from the alleys of the historical web of Lefkada and its reconstruction, through an in-depth dialogue of the past, present and future. The designing principles of the project reinforce the poetic and literal transfer of this pattern in the lighthouse beach, in the entrance of the island, having as a link the path between these two areas.

The redesign and reconstruction of the particular cluster ought to have as a basic principle the respect on the values it entails, every intervention/ interference should converse, be assessed or even self-annulled in respect to the relations it configures.

More precisely, the channels of the city’s alleys, which would flow underground, are revealed in many points and the paving is organised in playful corrugations, configuring the breaches into “floating routes”. This approach interrupts their linearity, creating cuts in their surface and allowing the flow of the water to become observable. The designing principles restore the circulation of people and water through the city.

The pattern, which is a result of the floating routes, is transferred in the areas of the lighthouse and the beach and it is redefined in paths. This perception establishes the overall strategy of finding the circulation system, which allows the various proportions of stable and unstable surface, as well as the transition from the area with the highest use (city 100% stable ground) as biotopes with rich vegetation, sand, liquid element (100% unstable ground), with a variety of experiential divergences in the interval 

By using the hidden, sullen beauty of the area, where nature asserts a piece from the urban infrastructure, the designing principles aim at reestablishing this route as a means of amusement. By altering the rules of cluster of nature and pedestrians/visitors, the strategy of weaving the natural environment blends organic and structural elements in an amalgam of varying proportion, which conciliates the dessert land/ the wild, the cultivated, the familiar/ the intimate and the hyper-social.

The linear experience of this new landscape that emerges is marked from the flow, the disorder/ diversion and a diverse worldliness, which preserves the mysterious and dessert character of the area, without underestimating its projected use and its popularity as a public/ open space.

It is proven that the aim of this specific approach, through the combination of the historic with the modern, is the creation of an artistic pole which will interweave the historical memories of the past with the developmental perspectives of the future, providing a solution to really important problems of the particular city- related to the historical memory, the regeneration and the finding of valuable space within the dense web of its centre. Besides, the ability of adaptable thought and action in the field of architecture is a solution providing for the satisfaction of the demands of the potentially evolving society.