Thodoris Tousas graduated from University of Thessaly, department of Architecture and made post-graduate studies in TU Delft and ETHZurich from where he received the diploma Master of Advanced Studies in Urban Design. He worked for Kees Christiaanse in Zurich and in Greece he collaborated with blp architects. In 2015 he founded his own office in Athens. He has received distinctions and one first price in international competitions. His work has been shown and published in international architectural group exhibitions.

Nowadays widely considered that cities evolve unplanned guided only by human and physical directions. At the same time, the production of the built environment is in accordance with precise urban rules. Rules are everywhere. They are hanging like folders above the built and unbuilt environment. Dominate the air, the ground, the underground, as an abstract and intangible urban infrastructure. Rules are not productive, but rather those who obey them.

Methodology

Research of urban blocks and urban rules that govern them
Proposed research axes of urban blocks:

Typological models: Diversity of urban blocks layouts

Morphological characteristics: Measurements and geometries of urban blocks

Legal framework: The configuration of the blocks through existing municipal rules

Cultural requirements: The configuration of the blocks through ideological frameworks

Historical transformations: Critical changes in the organization of blocks

Geographical pressures: The role of environmental morphologies

Applied Uses: The block, its use and how this affects its geometry.

Visualization of urban rules
The visualization of the rules avoids a predetermined configuration of building volume for the sake of various possibilities. The building volume can be presented as abstract diagram or as volumetric model of the urban envelope relating thereto. Next will be presented possible scenarios of different variants with the most likely visualize their architectural expressions. In this context, there will be screened small medium and large density variations, no more so as to avoid the impression of arbitrariness.

Segmentation of urban rules.
The rules will be categorized into their primary objectives. These categories are interrelated but with a first division can have the following, those linked to urban density, those that affect the urban form and the form of buildings, those that affect programmatic and those mentioned in the aesthetics of building volumes.

Wishlist conclusions
The purpose of this research is to better understand the conditions and processes of urbanization. The aim is a reinterpretation of the role of the block and urban rules governing the contemporary built environment which can serve as a basic tool to reconsider the restructuring of the existing urban fragments.
 

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