The volume of illegal building in Greece is large and describes a complex, social, urban and economic problem. The occupation of public land may include any arbitrary installation even in coastal areas.
This current research examines the long process of colonization of the coastal area of Epitalio, in the prefecture of Ilia. The experiential research material is provided by the population of carcasses of buildings, which, over the lunar landscape of the sandy beach constitute a puzzling scene: on it can be read, on the one hand, the succession of arbitrary individual initiatives and social complicity and on the other, the fitful, often unjust , State improvisation.
Narrating the story of the region of Epitalio and the events that led to the seizure of the beach by huts and more permanent structures, this research work attempts to evaluate the rich physical characteristics of an ecosystem, which the expansion of arbitrary housing put in grave danger. To better understand the quality of use of the area we need to describe the social identity of the settlers.
In addition, we approached the presence of the damaged and corroded buildings-ruins with a different look. Skeletons and remains of a different era, they look so old and built into the landscape as if they were always there. The power of the nature assimilated the remnants of the abandoned human intervention and made them a part of it. These are no longer a visual barrier, but get an interesting perspective and a general sensory condition and are converted into a source of information about the history of the area. Indeed, from a certain perspective, these data, exposed and continuously transforming over the time of exposure, give the unfinished work of nature a threshold value that, if any, allows the induction of the landscape to a work of Land-Art.
The research ends not with an answer but with some questions:
• Was the offender who inhabited the region finally happy in the abeyance and the institutional instability of the "foreign" territory?
• Does the ruined landscape remain part of the urban fabric or has it concluded to a slow process of clearance of traces of the material interventions and incorporation into the jurisdiction of a new artificial nature?
