Ears to the Ground
a sonic lecture byLudwig Berger
With the lights turned off, we listen
to glaciers melting,
the breathing of a peat bog,
the pulse of a highway.
Sound narrates places beyond the city,
and listening becomes a tool
to explore climate change
and the entanglement of bodies and places within it.
Auditorium
Thursday, 2 October, 14:00 — duration 16'
In the framework of the course
EKTOS POLIS: Researching the Urban Otherwise - Wanderings across Extended Urbanisation
Observatory of the Countryside
tutor: Metaxia Markaki
Ludwig Berger is a sound artist and composer based in Zurich, Montrealand Milan. In his installations and performances, he engages playfully with more-than-human worlds such as beehives, glaciers, water infrastructures, and trees. In his musical work, he produces intimate sonic eco-fictions through synthesis and sampling. He has released various albums of field recordings, improvisations, and electroacoustic music, and composes for film, theatre, and radio. He is the curator of the tape label Vertical Music, runs a monthly radio show at Radio Raheem, and teaches sound and field recording at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he studies the sonic dimension of Japanese gardens, alpine glaciers, and urban landscapes.
Within the framework of the Erasmus+ program, the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly co-organized with Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Nantes (France), Universita Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy), Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Eindhoven Technical University (Nederland) and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy) the Blended Intensive Program entitled "Hybrid Urbanscapes" from July 1 to 6, 2024.
The program fostered a dynamic exchange of ideas, encouraging participants to explore forward-thinking urban strategies that integrate ecological principles, climate resilience, and the evolving interplay between human settlements and natural ecosystems.
Through lectures, site visits, and collaborative design work, students engaged with real-world urban and environmental challenges.
This volume brings together the knowledge and creative explorations that emerged from the workshop. It includes a collection of lectures delivered during the workshop, as well as documentation of field visits to critical sites affected by extreme flooding in September 2023 – the Giannouli neighborhood in Larisa, Lake Karla, and the village of Mikro in Pelion. These locations, deeply impacted by climate-related disasters, served as case studies for envisioning resilient urban and territorial futures.
Additionally, the volume showcases a series of student design projects developed in four design studios at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, during the winter of 2023 and spring of 2024. These projects, which were presented and exhibited during the workshop in Volos, propose innovative approaches to reimagining the delicate balance between river systems, water management, and the built environment, offering critical insights into sustainable urban futures.
Read the volume.
Join us on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, at 19:00, at the Museum of the City of Volos, for the screening of a short video-chronicle (dir. Christos Schoinas) from the exhibition Floodmarks (April 2 – May 9, 2025). The exhibition was organized at the same venue by an interdisciplinary team of social anthropologists, architects, geographers, artists, and activists.
The event has a twofold aim: to reflect on and gather feedback on the exhibition as a public intervention within the continuing afterlives of the flood, as well as to discuss possible future actions; and to announce the establishment of the Diachronic and Experiential Landscape Observatory at the University of Thessaly’s Department of Architecture (TAM) and Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology (IAKA).
Floodmarks was co-organized by members of the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology (IAKA) and the Department of Architecture (TAM) of the University of Thessaly, the Pelion Summer Lab (PSL) for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities and the Volos Art Association, with assistance from the staff of the Museum of the City of Volos. For more information, see here.
Graphics: Katerina Giannitsi
The 4th International Workshop in Theory and Sound "Waves", 26-28/08/2025 at the Paou Monastery, is co-organized by:
- The “Mobility Studies” Postgraduate Programme and the Social Anthropology Lab (Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology), University of Thessaly,
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The Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries, University of Thessaly,
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The Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly,
In collaboration with MOMus Experimental Centre for the Arts.
theoretical ↔ artistic workshop
The 2025 ISTW focuses on the topic of “waves”, exploring its analytical potential for the study of music and sound in the (Eastern) Mediterranean and across their transnational trajectories and resonances. The wave, a performative materiality enacting sound’s reproductions, transmissions, diffractions, dispersions, vibrations, interferences, velocities, echoes, periodicities, frequencies and oscillations.
The workshop is aligned with the sound festival organized by MOMus Experimental Centre for the Arts in January 2026. The festival also focuses on the topic of “wwwwavessss” and will host projects designed in the context of the IWTS workshop.
Invited speakers:
- Jessica Swanston Baker (University of Chicago)
- Gavin Williams (King’s College London)
- Jean Paul Thibaud (AAU Cresson, University Grenoble Alpes)
For more info please refer to the website and the programme.
Student Projects Final Presentations ΑΣ1512_ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IV-VI IB: Collective Inhabitation Models: Architectures οf Care
Students presenting their projects:
MARIA AGIOPETRITI / ILIAS KALOGRIAS / KATERINA MELINA-KARAGIANNIDOU / EMILY KOUREMENOU/ MONIKA NIKOLAIDI / ELEUTHERIA NTENEKOU / GEORGIA PETRIDOU / MARINA PLARINOU / NIKOLETA SAMARA / GIANNIS SILITZOGLOU / ANTONIETTA STEFANI/ VASILIS STYLAS / DANAI TASIOPOULOU / MARIA TSERVENI / KONSTANTINA HATZIFOTIADOU / ASIMINA HRISTOFILOU
Commentary:
Dimitris Gourdoukis, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Arch., AUTh
Instructor:
Petros Phokaides, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Arch, UTh.
Proposals for a museum dedicated to Giorgio de Chirico are presented in an exhibition that opens at Art Space δ (Hatziargyri 4 - Iasonos) on June 12, 20:00.
The exhibition consists of selected student projects developed at the Department of Architecture as part of the course Architectural Composition III-V ΙB: THE ENIGMA OF THE CITY. The aim of the course was the design of the Giorgio de Chirico Museum in Volos, which will be a pole of attraction for visitors and a laboratory of cultural empowerment, providing at the same time a new architectural landmark for the city of Volos, and internalizing concepts, atmospheres and emotional moods that characterize the most creative period of de Chirico's painting.
The exhibition is curated by Kostas Manolidis and Faye Tzanetoulakou and will last until June 24.
See the poster of the exhibition here.
SPETSES 13-20 JULY
The Anargyrios Korgialenios School of Spetses (AKSS) and the Department of Architecture of the University of Patras are organizing the first Spetses Architecture Workshop SAW 2025 from 13/7 to 20/7 at the AKSS facilities in Spetses.
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].