Art Centre

Architecture Department at University of Thessaloniki
Date:2008
Project collaborators: Maniati Fei, Michail Thalia
Director: Irena Sakellaridou

This project is about a complex of buildings, in the waterfront of Kalamaria, near to the camp Kodra which will be used as an art laboratory and in the same time as a cultural center for the city. The complex is composed of three basic parts starting from the slope with the guest rooms, connected with piers that holds the workshops which finally leads to a floating.

The main idea was to explore through this project the boundary between the sea and the land. Through the analysis we observed that the linear form of the waterfront of Kalamaria gives to the habitants the opportunity to walk along the sea but does not allow them to have other spatial experiences near or above it.
Moreover, besides the water that represents the border of the urban tissue there is a lane of green with a profound inclination that is extended parallel to the seafront and functions as a second borderline.
These two borders, create an interspace, obviously narrow but enough to discourage the dialogue between city and water. This project suggests that this interspace could take the form of a building; in other words to accept some functions in several points that give new stimuli to the seafront area.

Two meanings led the architectural planning: The idea of a repeated unit and the idea of the transformation. The first is addressed to the part of the building that is extended to the underground into the slope and the second to the part which is placed on the water. As a unit we used the shape of a lane that is folded and repeated to give morphologically the sense of the artificial relief. Small and projected volumes create openings to the view, eliminating the introversion of the building. To the water area, the idea of the transformed volumes creates flexible spaces which are exerted according the needs of the users. These volumes can be moved, increased and decreased giving from time to time a different aspect to the seafront.

Our primary objective with this project was to create a place which will give the artists the opportunity to visit Greece for a short period in order to live, work and exhibit their creations.