The Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly is organizing a conference on contemporary challenges for architecture and urban space and invites students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, young graduates as well as PhD candidates to participate in a critical dialogue on the current issues of Greek cities and the potential of architecture to become a tool for questioning and empowerment, shaping new collective dynamics and responses to social needs.
The Department of Architecture at the University of Thessaly (UTh) and the open research-action group CoHab Athens are organizing the symposium “Inhabiting Together: Practices and Imaginaries for a Collective Architecture.” The event features contributions from participant teams of the collaborative youth competition «CoHabiting Vacancies – Συν-κατοικώντας τα κενά» (CoHab Athens, 2024-2025), who will present their proposals for the reuse and transformation of vacant buildings—mainly belonging to public or non-profit organizations—into various forms of cooperative housing based on local and community needs. Drawing on the design experiments and alternative housing production scenarios developed through the competition, the symposium also aims to initiate broader discussions on contemporary housing policy in Greece. Short presentations by architects and researchers will lead into an open conversation, seeking to address critical questions such as:
- What are the prospects for addressing the deadlocks and crises in the housing sector, which are becoming increasingly severe and disproportionately impacting vulnerable social groups?
- What institutional, economic, and social challenges arise in adopting cooperative housing models in Greece, and what lessons can be learned from their long-standing implementation in other countries?
- How can architectural education, research, and practice contribute to shaping “realistic alternatives for access to affordable and quality housing, based on principles of self-organization, democracy, care, and environmental responsibility” (CoHab 2023)?
The symposium seeks to highlight the critical role of architecture in reflecting on and challenging dominant perceptions and models of housing in Greece. It focuses on the intersections between architectural theory and practice, academic research and education, local government, and grassroots initiatives. Its aim is to contribute to the shaping of alternative practices and imaginaries in which housing is understood not only as a social right, but also as a catalyst for the transformation of social relations; as a site for questioning gendered, class-based, spatial, and other social inequalities — and, at the same time, as a foundation for forging the conditions of collective life and architecture.
The symposium will take place in person and online on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, at 16:00, in Room E, Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly and on MS Teams [link].
On Wednesday 28-5-2025 at 13:30, there will be a lecture by Neil Leach, architect and professor specialized in artificial intelligence titled "AI and the future of Architecture", as part of the course Computer Aided Design I taught by associate professor Ioanna Symeonidou
Neil Leach is an architect and professor and the author of over forty books, most recently addressing AI. He has taught at many of the leading schools of architecture in the world, including Harvard Graduate School of Design, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, and currently directs the Doctor of Design program at Florida International University.
The lecture will take place at the amphitheater of the Department of Architecture
You can download the poster here.
Lecture by Kieran Gaya titled Myths and the Fabrication of National Identity in Architectural Context.
Thursday 22 May 2025 14:00-17:00, Room Γ
Short bio:
Kieran Gaya was born in Dublin, Ireland of Mauritian parents and spent his formative years in Asia, Africa, as well as Europe. After training as an architect in the USA, he went on to earn graduate degrees in Florence, Italy and in Zurich, Switzerland, and received his Ph.D. from the University College of Dublin, Ireland. Each thesis focused on the symbiotic cultural production of both local and international agents into a specific context and how the visual culture accessible in the urban fabric has transformed civic identities. His research focuses on the historical seasoning steeped into the modern language of architecture of post-colonial nations.
Guest lecture as part of the course: SPECIAL TOPICS IN THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II: DECOLONISING ARCHITECTURE (2024-2025)
Instructor: P. Phokaides, Ass. Prof. Dept. of Arch, UTh.
farasi.zine
issue 04 / Winter 2025
Guest editor: Michaeljohn Raftopoulos
Drawings, text and graphic design: Michaeljohn Raftopoulos
farasi.zine #4 is part of the author's ongoing research into improvised building practices in Greece. What criteria can we use to evaluate the built environment and its living conditions in the absence of eponymous architecture? What can architects gain from looking at the residential environment that is produced in such settings? In the current issue, titled, "Salamina Itinerary", these questions come into play by means of peripatetic observation, text and drawings, which function not only as descriptive tools but as means to "perform" a method of understanding.
#04_φαράσι farasi_04 (2025) UTH for reading
#04_φαράσι farasi_04 (2025) UTH for printing
Michaeljohn Raftopoulos(Athens, 1978) is an architect, with a Bachelor degree in the History of Art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He is co-founder of the architecture office AREA (Architecture Research Athens), together with Styliani Daouti and Giorgos Mitroulias. His built work in Greece is supplemented by numerous awards in Greek and international competitions, such as the AthensX4 Competition in 2010 (1st Prize) and the European urban design competition Europan in 2013, in Germany, and 2015, in Portugal. His research has featured in international exhibitions, such as “Made in Athens” at the Greek Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2012), “Adhocracy Athens” (2015), and “Tomorrows: Urban Fictions for Possible Futures” in Nantes (2019). AREA’s architectural projects were among the Greek nominations for the Europan Mies van der Rohe Awards of 2017 and 2021. In 2022, AREA was shortlisted for the Architectural Review Emerging Awards (UK), among 16 creative offices worldwide, and AREA has also received the Record Houses Award (USA), the AR House Award (UK) and DOMa awards (GR). M. Raftopoulos has taught architectural design in undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Thessaly, the University of Patras and the University of Thessaloniki Departments of Architecture, and at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University in Valencia (ES).
Lecture by Loukas Triantis titled Intersectional Approaches and Queer Spatialities
Friday 16 May 2024 14:00-17:00
MS Teams: https://shorturl.at/19i37
The lecture will take place online in the framework of the course: SPECIAL TOPICS IN THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE II: DECOLONISING ARCHITECTURE
Instructor: P. Phokaides, Ass. Prof. Dept. of Arch, UTh.
Short bio:
Loukas Trianits is an assistant professor in the School of Architecture AUTh where he teaches urban design, urban and spatial and planning, with an emphasis on the production of space. His research interests focus on the social, political, and institutional aspects of spatial planning, development, and governance through interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches.
15/5/25 15:00 Postgraduate hall.
Lecture by Panagiotis Lianos entitled "Graffiti appearances: from the personal to the commons and from the urban to the digital " on Monday 12/5/2025 at 11:30 in the Amphitheater of the Department of Planning and Regional Development.
Panayotis Lianos is an artist, architect and tattooist based in Athens. He is a graduate of the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, has a Master of Fine Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts and currently is a PhD candidate in Architecture at NTUA. His artistic research focuses on the methods of collective artistic production that can, potentially, create cracks within institutional frameworks. The mediums he employs span from installations to digital interdisciplinary fetishes, composing a vocabulary that fluctuates between bits and gestures, blood and data. His work has been presented in various institutions and art spaces such as: Urbanism\Architecture Bi-City Biennale (UABB), Hong Kong & Shenzhen; Saigon, Athens; State of Concept, Athens; Eight, Athens; Neo Cosmos, Athens; P.E.T. Projects, Athens; Ammophila, Elafonisos and Michalis Cacoyannis Foundation, among others. Panayotis is a member of the Laboratory for the Urban Commons, the fluid artistic collaborations method brackets[], and has been a member of the Ofrah Fergal Kasei practice. Via the aforementioned symbioses a series of co-authored works, interventions and publications have been produced; some exist in self-managed and public spaces while others are included in public and private collections. He has been awarded by ARTWORKS in 2022 and his PhD research is supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the 5th Call for HFRI PhD Fellowships.
Lecture by architect and visual artist Peggy Zalis entitled "The 'alania' and their eccentric architectural configurations: Women architects in the autonomous feminist movement of the post-dictatorship period in Greece" on Monday 12/5/2025 in hall A1 of the Department of Planning and Regional Development.