Piraeus tower, a vertical city

Student : Kalogeropoulou Eirini
Supervisor: Α. Τzombanakis
Technical University of Crete, School of Architectural Engineering
Presentantio date : February 2013

The project is dealt in the urban terms of a masterplan, at a vertical axis, and organizes an ideal route that could pass through the city's most important spots. A museum - observatory is thus created, directing the visitor's eye to each site and providing an experience similar to the referred place through the thematology of the program. The scale and the characteristics of the city get inside the building and shape it, commenting simultaneously on the harsh and sometimes brutal ways of building that modern practice is utilizing in Greece. Based on the location and the wider relationship of the region with the centre of Athens, the concept of the project proposes an open building to the citizens of Piraeus as well as the native or foreign visitors.

In order to achieve that, a series of public places are positioned at a two-story pace across the building's height. These "foyers" bring the different space qualities of the city's sights in one place while trying through their unity to set them at a common base. Each set of differences is thus forced to face one another and coexist in a consciously accepted diversity. The formality and magnitude of a central square, the sense of no limit and openness of a seafront, the green park on the hill, the sports court, the traditional-small scale-Greek restaurants of the picturesque side, or the big plaza before the municipal theatre at the heart of the city have found their equivalent inside the building and unveil at the feet of the visitor through the primary circulation route. This route channels people to the adjacent private functions and carves the volume from the inside out.

The final result of the proposal tries to purge the dead volume that only exists as a phantom and stands out from the cityscape with its monolithic oddity. This intention breaks the scale of the building by embodying that of its surroundings, that way it brings it closer to the sense of the city and makes it more familiar to the citizens. The building tries to become a symbol not due to its unique form or its strategic position at the entrance of Athens but through its life, day and night. It thus becomes a beacon of its vivid city with all its unique elements that it bears.