Study case (planning and design) for the activation of an abandoned tobacco warehouse in the district of Terpsithea of the Municipality of Pavlos Melas in the urban complex of Thessaloniki.
The aim is to reintegrate the inactive building stock into the urban landscape of the area by creating a participatory and autonomous political centre that will address citizens of all ages, covering basic needs of health, education, mental and physical activity and housing. The core of financing, decision making and organization of services/actions is the citizen, who in conditions of direct democracy and transparency participates in the administration and the composition of his/her own eutopia. In this way, solid foundations are established so that the studied urban cell can be transformed into an active neighborhood / com- munity and a field of collectivity, solidarity, common political action, reflective and technical will and enjoyment.
This thesis is not just an architectural proposal for the reuse of a former industrial building, but an early manual, an initial attempt, for the birth of a self-organized core of collective life that comes to fill the gaps created daily by the collapse of the state entity. The renegotiation of the constitutive principles of life presented in this issue is intended to architecturally and creatively challenge and undermine the current social, political and economic reality.