Astiko Horio

Students: Anagnostou Louiza, Vassalou Angeliki Eftichia
Supervisor: N.P.Kazeros
University of Patras, Polytechnic School, Department of Architecture
Thesis, December 2009

Astiko Ηorio [urban village] is a project inspired by the plethora of olive trees located in the suburban environment of Cholargos and evolved to a holistic design of the public landscape exploring a different practice of urban inhabitancy.

The main idea concerns collective urban cultivation; exploring the potentials of a biocommunity, which is self-organized, self-sufficient and built upon relations of solidarity and confidence.
Our research tool was a collective action in the public space; the olive harvesting on the districts sidewalks.
The action contributed to the validation of the collective identity and generated local designing directions that emerged not only from the urban geography but also from the active participation of people.

Through further research of the local flora and fauna, urban and natural anaglyph, collective memory, contemporary urban situation and needs we designed a sustainable urban field that spreads out to the streets of the area.

Community buildings and gardens helps small neighbourhood collectives to sprout.
Greenways conjoin the city with the Hymettus Mountain, cooling the atmosphere of the city and enabling wild [and domestic] life to gain lost space.

The revelation of an old stream generates the circular city's metabolism. The stream creates designing events relevant to the memory of past geography and allows observation of seasonal cycles.

The project is about giving back to people and nature the city's public space [earth], to re-inhabit and shape it dialectical. In other ways, it's a proposal of how urban and agricultural ways of living can stop being competitive but can create a viable blend.