Contributors :Efi Dimitrakopoulou & Ioanna Sotiriou, PhD Candidates UTH
 

“SYMBIOSIS WITH THE MONSTER OF KARLA"

New forms of residence in the lakeside territory of Lake Karla and the adjacent settlements

The design workshop for students of the 6th and 8th semesters for the spring semester of 2025 entitled “Urban Farm House_ UFHO” will be located in the area of ​​Lake Karla as it was formed after the disastrous floods of Elias and Daniel and after the drainage of the waters of the new lake that was created in the Pagasitic Gulf. The course will focus on identifying the new condition in terms of environmental sustainability and will ask about the possibility of sustainable re-inhabitation of the settlements, which are now in a state of crisis and abandonment. In order to anchor the workshop in the new reality, it will be considered that a hypothetical framework of voluntary return or new residence in the area. According to this framework, new residents are sought, who will come to the area seeking a new agro-urban life adapted to the ecological data of the area and with a system of improving the existing ones or creating new shells, according to the wishes and needs of the prospective new residents. This is a new hypothetical housing program that is not based on the logic of creating indifferent general housing typologies, such as the tradition of social housing in post-war Europe, but on a system of “participatory planning, based on the needs and desires of the prospective residents and following the logic of the small agro-urban single-family house with mixed uses of agricultural, livestock production and coexistence with the viable conditions of the ecological system of the Lake.

THE DISASTER AND THE LOST OPPORTUNITY

The catastrophic floods of Thessaly highlighted the relationship between the exceptional climatic conditions of the Anthropocene era and the sustainability of the wider region we inhabit. The violent climatic event overturned all the balances of the region and appeared as a destructive “revenge” of nature on human activity, which overturns the vital balances of the planet. With a reverse attitude towards the disaster that has occurred, we could see the new exceptional condition that was created in the Thessalian plain as an opportunity. However, with the organized reaction to the flood and the new situation that it created, the opportunity was lost once again.

We focus on the Karla Lake area. There, the torrential rain and the subsequent flooding caused the lake to be recreated approximately as its boundaries were before the human, technical attempt to eliminate it and before the attempt to partially restore it at the beginning of the century. Therefore, natural processes caused a natural restoration, which would have been the opportunity to restore the natural environment for the benefit of the sustainability of the area (Restoration of biodiversity, restoration of the aquifer, etc.). The opportunity was lost with a second disaster caused by political decisions. The emptying of the lake's excess water caused a new ecological disaster, this time in the Pagasitikos Gulf. And of course, the great opportunity of a generous return to ancient Karla and its life-giving power in the Thessalian plain was lost.

THE FIELD OF RESEARCH

The laboratory will have as its field of research and application of its design steps the amphibious environment of Lake Karla. The research question is to see this integrated and at the same time half-destroyed environment as a biotic, geological and climatic field where a multitude of factors, living and non-living, human and non-human, collaborate in the creation of a comprehensive biotic condition, which will promote the development of complex life systems at all scales. Research into this condition will be carried out at two non-discrete levels.

A. At the level of recognition and documentation of the biotic condition of the lake. How the individual subjects that constitute the world of the lake interact and contribute to the restoration of the biotic condition.

B. At the level of describing a programmatic and planned impact on the condition of the lake with the aim of developing individual favorable living conditions for the subjects that make up the real world of the lake.

METHODOLOGY

Through a series of successive exercises, one of which will be a continuation of the other, students will be led to the construction of a scenario and the design composition, using as design tools the diagrams for recording and reading the research field, the architectural drawings as well as the working models. In addition, a series of lectures focusing on the subject of the course will help to enrich the concepts set out in the course.

Lectures: Maria Koutsogeoriou, Vasilina Papadimitropoulou, Elina Letsiou, Zisis Kotioni, Efthymia Dimitrakopoulou, Ioanna Sotiriou

A) Knowing the Subjects of Residence

Investigation of the subjects of the neighborhood-building block-territory of residence. Recording the daily life of the subjects and understanding their multiple identities through the assembly of their material world, their household goods and work. Students are invited to approach and describe the daily action of the subjects of residence with multiple qualities. In the post-industrial era, the subjects do not have and do not present a unique identity. Through the multiple activities concerning the "main" and "secondary" work, the diverse roles and performativity of each action and the fluidity of gender relations, the students are invited to capture in a creative way the 24 hours of the subjects who will become the residents of their proposal (mental maps, collages, diagrams, videos).

B) The cage

Creation of a cage of residence, drawing on data from the subjects' research: how could these subjects, together with their household goods, constitute an expanded condition of residence and coexistence with the integration of work and outdoor life into the house? What will be the structural elements and the method of their function so that we can rethink the residence of the subjects together? The construction of a model-cage is requested where the air. water, soil, animals, plants and habitation subjects constitute an assemblage, an alignment of heterogeneous functional elements.

C) Landing: A New Structure of Dwelling

Identification of an urban and simultaneously outdoor habitation condition in the expanded territory of the area where the research on the habitation subjects has been conducted. How can design research be adapted and applied to the plot, built or unbuilt? How is the community of coexistence reconstructed in a more porous structure? How do built and unbuilt co-shape a habitation community by introducing characteristics of habitation practices with an emphasis on the practices of the outdoor world? (design research - model designs, test models)