On Tuesday 6-5-2025 at 17:00, there will be a lecture followed by a two-day workshop by Smaro Katsangelou, architect, specialized in artificial intelligence and PhD Candidate at Florida Atlantic University titled "Polykatoikia 2.0: Designing for the Greek City using AI", as part of the course Architecture Design Studio II taught by associate professor Ioanna Symeonidou
The lecture will take place at Lecture Hall Z
You can download the poster here.
As part of the course ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IV-VII: Designing Emergency: Relocation of settlements after the disaster in the Thessaly Plain, on Tuesday 6/5 at 18:30 a lecture entitled "Earthquake and reconstruction. The case of the urban relocation of Gibellina” will be held by Angela Badami, University of Palermo (Italy), in the attic.
Earthquake and reconstruction. The case of the urban relocation of Gibellina
Lecture topics:
- Gibellina before the earthquake: the restitution of the image of a disappeared city
- The 1968 earthquake in the Belice Valley, Sicily
- Bottom-up popular activism and top-down State reconstruction
- Urban planning technique vs idea of the city
- The project for the new city and the urban planning variants
- Towards a new idea of the city: architecture and contemporary works of art
- The Great Cretto: epilogue of the city destroyed by the earthquake
MS Teams link.
Angela Alessandra Badami, architect and PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, is Full Professor of Urban Design at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo. She is in charge of the Urban Planning Laboratory 2 at the Master's Degree Course in Architecture and of the Laboratory of Analysis, Communication and Design of Urban Space at the Degree Course in Design. She conducts theoretical and applied research on urban regeneration, social innovation and the enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. She has conducted applied research for public bodies, including: the research on Local Cultural Systems, commissioned by the Regional Department of Urban Planning of the Sicilian Region for the drafting of the Regional Urban Territorial Plan of Sicily; the researchRisk Map at local scale – The waterfront from criticality to feeder of urban quality, commissioned by the Regional Centre for Restoration of the Sicilian Region. She is the designer and scientific manager of the European project Creative LAB–Alcamo, PO FESR Sicily 2007/2013. She directed the drafting of the Guidelines for the Colour Plan of the Egadi Islands, on behalf of the Municipality of Favignana.
As part of the course RESIDENTIAL PRACTICES: The Monster of Karla, a lecture titled “Art and Planetary Care: Issues of Materiality and Sustainability in the Era of Climate Crisis” will be held on Monday, May 5th at 15:00, delivered by Daphne Dragona via Teams.
Daphne Dragona is an independent curator, theorist and writer based in Berlin and Athens. In her current work, she addresses the challenges of degrowth for art and culture, and studies the ambiguous role of technology in times of climate crisis. Dragona is teaching Theory of Curatorial Practices, Exhibition Design and History of Digital Art at the Department of Audiovisual Arts of the Ionian University. She is affiliated to Onassis Stegi as curatorial advisor, and has served as a jury member for the Akademie Schloss Solitude fellowships (Stuttgart), for the ARTWORKS, Fellowship for Greek Young Artists and Curators of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Athens) and for numerous festivals and conferences. She worked as a curator for EMAF- European Media Art Festival (Onsabrück) from 2021 until 2023, and, earlier, for transmediale festival (Berlin) from 2015 until 2019. From 2001 until 2007 she was the general coordinator of medi@terra festival, organised by Fournos (Athens). She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the University of Athens, an MA in Museum Studies from UCL, and a BA in Archaeology and History of Art from the University of Athens.
Note: The lecture will be delivered in Greek.
On Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM in the postgraduate hall (ground floor) and within the framework of the Erasmus+ BIP Cross-Mythologies and Anthropocene, a lecture by Professor Zisis Kotionis entitled “Every Bone in You _ Every Stone is You” will take place.
On Tuesday 29-4-2025 at 14:00, there will be a lecture by Alexandros Christodoulou, civil engineer, computational designer and PhD Candidate at UTH titled "Reshaping the Digital Toolkit of Architecture", as part of the courses Computer Aided Design I and Architecture Design Studio II
The lecture will take place at the Amphitheatre of the Department of Architecture
You can download the poster here.
Lecture by Konstantinos Pittas entitled "Towards the Democratization of Cultural Institutions: Methodological Approaches" on April 29th at 20:30 at the Dept. ARCH amphitheater.
In a time characterised by the increasing erosion of democratic institutions, this lecture presents different modes of engagement with cultural institutions in the attempt to democratise them. Konstantinos Pittas (architect & researcher), drawing on his ethnographic research, will present various case studies that attempt to envisage an open, dynamic, and self-reflective model of institutionality. These include, firstly, attempts of decentering hegemonic mega-institutions, such as documenta 14 in Athens, which foregrounded decolonial narratives and dissident histories from the periphery. Secondly, endeavours of inventing new flexible organisational arrangements, such as alter-institutions that introduce novel parliamentary formats, spatial settings, and decision-making processes. Finally, modes of critical engagement with museums that set out to seize and reform them, such as artistic activist initiatives in the U.S. that center-stage questions of museum governance and arts sponsorship. Some conclusions will be drawn at the end on the possibilities and limitations of the methodologies that take place within, at the threshold of, or outside cultural institutions in the attempt to democratise them.
Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Program
Cross-Mythologies and The Anthropocene
Mesopotamia and Greek Mythos - Interdisciplinary Exploration through Performance, Space and Poetics
Volos, 28.4. - 3.5.2025
This Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), as a unity of two individual events, brings together people engaged in research in various disciplines, such as anthropology, architecture, literature, performance, and cultural studies, around a common theme: the connection between humanity and nature. It aims to explore the relationship between nature and human activities through different critical perspectives. The main aim is to familiarize the members of the research team with a more informed view of the life around them.
This time, with a focus on Volos, the Project aims to promote interdisciplinary collaboration between students and scientific teams from Turkey, Italy, and Greece to explore the manifestations of global mythologies with an emphasis on performance, spatial dynamics, poetics, and ecological consciousness. Through workshops, discussions, and practical exercises organised and coordinated by people specialised in various fields, this double event aims to promote cultural exchange and collaborative research.
Poster designed by Marialena Kanelli, student arch.uth
Photo: Evaggelia Apostolou, architect (participation in Floodmarks-exhibition)
The Floodmarks exhibition, a product of collaboration between social anthropologists, architects, geographers, artists and activists, invites the citizens of the city of Volos and the wider region of Thessaly to the Volos City Museum (17 Feron) from April 2 to April 27, with the aim of co-creating a common space for testimony, dialogue and reflection on the devastating floods of September 2023 and the intensifying climate crisis.
As part of the course ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION IV-VII: Designing Emergency: Relocation of settlements after the disaster in the Thessaly Plain, on Tuesday 1/4 at 18:30 a lecture entitled "Relocated communities. Reconstruction processes in Italy” will be held by Monica Musolino, University of Messina (Italy), in the attic.
The seminar proposes an analysis of the relocation processes of some Italian isolated towns following devastating disasters. In particular, the results of a sociological research centred on the comparison of case studies will be presented. The analysis focuses on the dynamics of material reconstruction, but also on the difficult mechanisms related to the identity and symbolic reconstruction of the communities of inhabitants affected by these processes.
Monica Musolino is currently Assistant professor at the University of Messina (Italy). She is urban and environmental sociologist and Phd doctor in “Theories of Political, Social and Communicative Institutions” (2009, at the University of Messina). In 2023 she carried out a visiting research at the Université Paris Cité in Paris (France), Department de Sciences Sociales, as part of her studies on renewable energy communities and energy transition in Italy. From September 2007 to June 2008, she conducted a period of specialization and research at "École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales" (EHESS-CNRS) in Paris (France).
Her interests and research activity include themes and sociological backgrounds analysis of urban space; urban, socio-economic and environmental transformations in the Southern Italy; post-disaster reconstruction processes; memory and trauma studies; territorial changes and globalization; cohousing and social housing; participatory processes and methods; renewable energy communities, energy citizenship, energy transition.
She is the author of many publications including
Territories of abandonment: landscape, ruins, and memory in a sociological perspective, in Oteri M. A. (Ed.), Lost and Found. Processes of abandonment of the architectural and urban heritage in inner areas: Causes, effects, and narratives (Italy, Albania, Romania), ArcHistoR EXTRA 13/Supplemento di Archistor 19 (2024), pp. 374-395. http://pkp.unirc.it/ojs/index.php/archistor/article/view/1015
Communities and inhabited environment in the socio-spatial reconstruction after a disaster: two Italian stories, in “Sociologia Urbana e Rurale”, 111, pp. 95-110, doi: 10.3280/SUR2016-111006.