Aristotelis Dimitrakopoulos was born in Athens in 1974 and graduated as an Architect-Engineer from the National Technical University of Athens in 1998. He studies Architectural Design at Yale University (M. Arch), receiving Yale Scholarships (1998-99, 1999-00), and Theatrical Set Design at the Yale School of Drama (1999-2000).

In New York City he has worked for Robert A.M. Stern Architects (2000-2001) on the Comcast Tower High-Rise Office Complex in Philadelphia and for Bernard Tschumi Architects (2002) on the New Acropolis Museum. In 2002 Aristotelis founded the Design and Research Initiative Aristotheke, based in Athens, focusing on design research - at the urban and building scales - in parallel to architectural practice. Aristotelis has participated in 18 architectural competitions with notable success. Research and Design work by Aristotheke has been featured in international exhibitions and relevant publications.

Aristotelis has taught architectural design studios and building technology courses as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Universit of Patras (2003-04, 2008), Architectural Theory, Architectural Design and Urban Design as a Professor of Architecture at theSavannah College of Art and Design (2004-6) in Savannah, Georgia, USA, and as an Associate Professor at Frederick University in Nicosia, Cyprus (2006-8). Aristotelis has been a Consultant on Architectural Design Issues to the Special Secretariat for Public and Private Partnerships (PPP) at the Hellenic Ministry of Economy (2008-2010).

During the last Decade Aristotelis has been writing regularly on urbanism and architectural design and has served as a member of the editorial board of several publications and architectural periodicals. At greekarchitects.gr Aristotelis maintains an independent column named Αrti-physis [> Meta-physis: Trascendent Urbanities] introducing a critical approach focusing on metaphysical aspects.

Telephone: 210 7249828
Address: Dimocharous 1 + Anapiron Polemou, Kolonaki, 11521, Athens
Εmail: info@aristotheke.com
Url: www.aristotheke.org

Arti-physis > Meta-physis: Transcendent Urbanities - Αρτι-φύσεις > Μετα-φύσεις: Αστικές Υπερβάσεις

The column Artiphysis introduces an urban approach focusing on metaphysical aspects. The architectural world is characterized by the tendency to categorize and isolate "species" and "types" of urban growth, often under stylistic or austerely morphological criteria. In reality these categories rarely exist independently as individual urban bodies, they are based on oversimplified and extreme observations that actually belong to the long-gone era of City-Planning.

The texts featured in Artiphysis touch upon the often subconscious field of intentions and dynamics that act during the conception period of an urban "physis", along with the collective or simply the critical influences that shape realities over (the dimension of) time.