The Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly is pleased to announce the awarding of two student groups in the pan-Hellenic student competition for the design of luminaires. The competition entitled "Light Up" (https://eia.gr/competitions/light-up/), was announced by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Master's Program "Lighting Design" of the School of Applied Arts and Sustainable Design of the Hellenic Open University. In total, 2000 Euros with be available for the first three prizes, while their commercial exploitation in collaboration with a luminaire manufacturer is also being considered.
The prize-winning proposals of the students of our Department are:
1st PRIZE: CymbaLux
IASON-GEORGE ABBOT & GEORGE HASIOTIS
30/6/2023 12:00
19-21/7/23, Chatzini Square, Agios Lavrentios
It includes discussions, hands-on practice in a carpentry workshop and construction in Hatzini Square under the guidance of professionals.
Book Materiality in the Architectural Design Studio: Good Practices
Editors: Vaso Trova, Iris Lykourioti
Publisher: Caleidoscopio
The collective volume Materiality in the Architectural Design Studio: Good Practices edited by Vaso Trova and Iris Lykourioti is published in English by Portuguese editorial house Caleidoscopio.
The book concerns the role of materiality in architectural design process and in the practices of architectural education. The chapters included in the volume are contributions by an international group of architects who teach architectural design in various schools across Europe and Turkey. They consist of an interesting and versatile comparative module of teaching experiences and experiments in spatial materialities.
The publication is the outcome of the tutors workshop organized by the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly in 2018 focusing on the same subject. The workshop was part of the Department’s international partnership within the EU funded Erasmus+ research program MATERIART.
The digital version of the book (open access) can be downloaded from the following link:
Materiality is a major component in architectural design education. Different methods are used depending on the level of students’ education (introductory year, middle years, final year, post graduate studies), the curriculum and the identity of each architectural school. Students are introduced into the use, aesthetics and mechanics of real materials; they learn how to use materials in symbolic ways in order to represent material reality; they learn how to experiment with non material imageries in order to rethink spatial materiality; they learn the techniques, the social aspects and impacts of material production. Handwork, manufacturing as well as high tech, digitalized material production processes are considered as distinct sets of knowledge to be taken into account likewise. They are equally important for the overall training of students of architecture since they provide a diverse context in the shaping of our material cultures.
In September 2018 the Dept. of Architecture, University of Thessaly organized the Volos Tutors’ Workshop within the framework of MATERIART project. The workshop functioned as a platform of exchange of good teaching practices of different schools of Architecture with regard to the methods used to integrate materiality in architectural studios. During the presentations and the discussions, a variety of methods and tactics have been presented and discussed, ranging from computational design to quick concept modeling.
Materiality as techniques can be understood in terms of the materiality of the final constructed product (a building, a structural detail, an object). A number of participants have shown how the specific restrictions, the potential and the structural properties of materials which are going to be used in the implementation of the project, have to be incorporated into the design processes and therefore shape the final outcome. This doesn’t necessarily mean the subordination of the creative process to a technicalreality. On the contrary, the challenge refers to the negotiation between imagination and technical frameworks and could lead to innovative results. Materials can function as a media isolating and transferring qualities of urban scale to abstract models. They enable us to focus on the specific which is normally interrelated – and therefore hidden- in the interweaved world of urban experience. Materiality could facilitate our way of thinking about certain spatial properties while at the same time it could create ambiguities which force us to reconsider the reality. The visual and the structural aspects of materiality interrelate in the process of understanding the existing and creating the new.
Modelling is a form of thinking, not just a presentation of an idea already completed. The process of design is a continuous negotiation between the abstract thinking and the materiality of the model. In this sense materiality plays a crucial role to the development of the design concept. Models as artefacts are constructing abstract relations between elements (as the sketch in drawing) but instead of lines they are using materials which insert their own properties into the design thinking process. From hands-on explorations to computational design the thinking-making process is heavily based on materiality and the rules imposed by it.
Materials have texture, they create atmospheres, soundscapes, they convey feelings, they formulate physical sensorial experiences. In this sense the poetics of materiality remain an issue which contributes to the design process, either with reference to the materials of the final product or with regard to the materiality of the design process and the thinking-modeling practices.(Introductory text by the editors)
Book Feminist Theories, Aesthetic Practices and Globalized Technologies
Editors: Elpida Karaba, Iris Lykourioti
Research team: Ioanna Zouli, Valia Papastamou, Kostas Stasinopoulos, Marianna Stefanitsi
Publisher: University of Thessaly Press, 2021
Τhe Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices (CNMFPP), a research unit of the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly is happy to announce the publication of its first book, an anthology of seminal feminist texts, translated into Greek for the first time, that creatively interconnect feminism, technology, art, the public sphere and public space, aiming to open a dynamic interdisciplinary and intersectional dialogue to the relevant Greek bibliography. The feminist anthology includes texts by Nansy Fraser, Audre Lorde, Sara Ahmed, Angela Dimitrakaki, Angela McRobbie, Silvia Federici, Ursula Biemann, José Muñoz, Elena Tzelepi, Athina Athanasiou and Alkisti Efthimiou, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Christina Grammatikopoulou, Donna Haraway, Rosi Bridotti, Judith Butler, Judy Wajcman, Teresa de Lauretis, Cornelia Sollfrank, Yayo Herrero, Paul Preciado.
The publication was funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI). It is available in printed form as well as an open access e-book in Greekin the following link:
Find below the book critique (in Greek) by Tina Pandi, curator at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) «A collection of feminist texts about women’s emancipation, technology and art» published in The Art Newspaper Greece, N. 6, April-May 2022. https://centrefeministmedia.arch.uth.gr//storage/PDF/TAN_book_6_53.pdf
For further information about the Centre's work and projects you can visit http://www.centrefeministmedia.arch.uth.gr
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Diploma Projects Exhibition 2020-22
Department of Architecture, Polytechnic School, University of Thessaly
Duration: 31 May - 30 June 2023
Opening: Wednesday, 31 May 2023 // 19:00
Ground floor - Central corridor, DArch UTh, Pedion Areos, Volos
The exhibition presents the 78 best Diploma projects completed at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly (DArch UTh) in the years 2020-21 (52) and 2021-22 (26). It will be on display from 31 May to 30 June 2023 and seeks to showcase the efforts and achievements of recent graduates as well as to shed light on the dynamic changes in the educational culture of the Department as it was shaped in a critical juncture.
In these two years, the diploma projects, and all educational activities, persisted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented public health protection measures. The Exhibition marks the return to activities in physical spaces and the reconnection of the academic community. It provides an opportunity to reflect critically on a condition that has tested not only individual and collective limits but also established methods of teaching in architectural education and to reconsider its priorities in the face of multiple crises: from pandemics to climate change.
The exhibition occupies the main corridor of the ground floor, where students, teachers, employees meet every day. It thus seeks to contribute to the re-appropriation of the building as a common place of reference and to emphasize the connections between the broader academic activities of the Department and the reflections, new ideas and design experiments that are developed primarily in diploma project through the close collaboration of faculty and students. Each of the 78 projects, and the exhibition as a whole, underline the importance of architectural education as a crucial field of coexistence, dialogue, creation, and fostering of hopeful perspectives for the future.
We dedicate this event to the memory of our dear friend, colleague, and scholar Spyros Papadopoulos (1966-2023) who passed away prematurely. The diploma projects he supervised as a faculty member of the Department since 2000-some of which stand out in this year's exhibition-are only part of his multifaceted research and teaching work that left a strong imprint on the identity and community of the Department. Closing the 2023-academic year with the Exhibition as a collective praxis, we make a first attempt to come to terms with the hard-to-fill void left by Spyros Papadopoulos with a celebratory, exuberant, and optimistic event, as we imagine he would have wanted it to be.
You can download the exhibition poster and the catalogue.
Curated on behalf of the Department of Architecture
Paniyiris, Costis
Micocci, Fabiano
Symeonidou, Ioanna
Phokaides, Petros
Supported by
Diamantouli, Εliki
Lioka, Styliani-Georgia
Marou, Thalia
Μitsimponas, Dimitrios
Savvidou, Stella
Topaloglou, Eleni
Laboratory of Environmental Communication & Audiovisual Documentation:
Eleni Pispiri
Giorgos Kalaouzis
Administration:
Nancy Gata
Department Secretary:
Dimoulas,Christos
Koniari, Sofia