central void

the void and the reserve

The workshop deals with the centre of Athens.

The methodology of the course is based on the convergence of two approaches: research / analytic on the one hand and synthetic / creative on the other. Thus, the problem of the city centre is dealt with as both an issue for analysis as well as a projection – project. As an issue, it poses a prevailing question, what the word centre signifies. As a project – problem, it becomes an expectation, a void. The central void is presented as reserve, as resource and at the same time as shortage, a need to cover it: on the one hand, what is centre, that is what is full enough (of population, built space, meaning, memory) to attract a metropolis around it and on the other hand, how this centre is void enough for its potentially youthful characteristics to emerge.

The students’groupsattemptto negotiate the city as a whole, using local and specific (bottom-up) approaches. They demand an extended field for architecture, at a time when economic and moral circumstances cast doubt on holistic and abstract urban space control practices.