Team [Κ]-onstruction is a working group investigating the material and structural characteristics of the architectural artifact. Workshops are organized towards the custom-design and full-scale construction of small-scale architectural structures, focusing on the continuum and the complexities of the design process. Experimentation in applied research is nurtured through the merging of professional practice within an academic perspective, in practice-based modules fostering teamwork and multi-disciplinarity.
ACADEMIC COORDINATOR: Maria Vrontissi, Lecturer Dep.Arch.
ADDRESS: Room 20, Dep. of Architecture, Univ. of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, VOLOS 38334, GREECE
Tel. +30.24210.74333
E-mail. omadak@gmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.arch.uth.gr/sites/omadaK/
The Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices is dedicated to the production, postproduction, distribution and support of women's’ practice and development of feminist theory. The cent is an innovative initiative which by definition involves application of information and technology, imagination and diverse methods in deriving new and different values and ethos in new media, feminist practice and public space. Ideas and processes will be conveyed to cultural products which will enhance women's’* advancement, productivity and assimilation to the professional field. The center organizes an on-going relational archive of relevant practices. Through workshops, seminars, tutorials and lectures, it provides the theoretical and technical expertise for starting projects combined with media, public space, labor and intellectual work in order to produce (symbolic) capital. Diverse and innovative methodologies are introduced in order for the local potential to succeed in the ever changing and increasing competitive global environment. The connection of technology and feminism is crucial at the time of globalized technology, post-digital condition, expanded capitalism, and the crisis of institutions where patriarchal structures and traditional powers are resiling, and they confirm that feminist claims are no more than a finished affair.
The Media Lab is situated in the central building of Department of Architecture of Thessaly University. It offers the infrastructure for the production of audiovisual works and provides technical and theoretical support, focusing on media, gender studies and public space. It opens by appointment.
Τhe Center for the Study of Archives in Architecture (CSΑΑ) focuses on the epistemological, design-related, and pedagogical implications of collecting, preserving, safeguarding, studying, and foregrounding diverse archives related to architecture and the production of space at all scales.
Within the framework of CSΑΑ’s activities, the “archive” is not treated as a concept confined to that of a repository, or limited to the practices of collecting and cataloguing. Instead, it is conceived as an open, interdisciplinary entity that connects us to the past, as well as to the continually evolving present and future. It is approached as a field where architectural, design, and material cultures are recognized, contextualized, and exhibited through the shaping of new narratives, revisions, and interpretations. A key objective of CSΑΑ is the development of digital tools and databases, based both on the collections already acquired and those it will engage within the future. By interrogating the archive but also the logics of collection, study, and management, CSΑΑ seeks to 'trouble' established archival practices and approaches in architectural research and education, injecting them with renewed dynamism and critical perspective.
A central aim of CSΑΑ is to dynamically and creatively develop activities related to the management of archival collections—both physical and digital—for the benefit of the academic and architectural communities. Its establishment seeks to mobilize resources and infrastructure within the Department of Architecture and the University of Thessaly, while also fostering collaborations with individuals, research groups and laboratories, as well as cultural institutions managing archival collections in Greece and abroad. Among CSΑΑ’s key objectives is the development of partnerships with cultural institutions such as public and private museums and archives based in the city of Volos, the region of Thessaly, and beyond. The center also aims to engage with both formal and informal socialgroups (e.g., cultural associations) that are actively involved in the creation and stewardship of archival collectionsin architecture.
At an initial stage, CSΑΑ is established as a “research unit” within the Department of Architecture at the University of Thessaly, by decision of the Department’s assembly (113th meeting – 02/04/2025), with the potential to adopt a different institutional status and legal form in the future.
CSΑΑ members
Iris Lykourioti, Vassilis Bourdakis, Petros Phokaides
Scientific consultants:
Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, Emeritus Professor, Dept.of Architecture, UTH
Giorgos Papakonstantinou, Emeritus Professor, Dept.of Architecture, UTH
Contact: cs.archivesinarchitecture@gmail.com
transdisciplinary LANDscape Empirical and Diachronic Observatory / LANDED_observatory arch.uth. hasa.uth
Founding members: Aspassia Kouzoupi arch.uth & Penelope Papailias iaka.uth / hasa.uth
The transdisciplinary “Landscape Empirical and Diachronic Observatory” aims to systematically document and study the broader landscape of Volos, including the Pagasetic gulf waterfront, Mt. Pelion and Thessaly region more generally. This research will also focus on how these landscapes have been experienced by the communities that inhabit them, and the ways they have been or still are shaped by their practices. The Observatory aims to address the impacts of climate change and harmful human interventions on landscapes with an emphasis on social justice that interweaves the methodologies of landscape design and social anthropology with more-than-human and decolonial approaches.
[The establishment of the Empirical and Diachronic Landscape Observatory as an interdepartmental research unit of the Department of Architecture and the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropologywas approved by the General Assemblies of the two Departments of the University of Thessaly in the summer of 2025.]