Archinect - News

BIG designs stepped concave towers for ‘Europe’s largest regeneration project’ in Greece

2023-10-18T12:15:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has designed a major residential complex in Athens, Greece. Named Park Rise and commissioned for LAMDA Development, BIG’s scheme is part of The Ellinikon, described by LAMDA as “Europe’s largest urban regeneration project and a smart city being built from the ground up in Athens.”

Image credit: Bjarke Ingels Group / LAMDA

Park Rise will form the centerpiece of Little Athens, a new residential neighborhood located within the Ellinikon master plan. BIG’s concept will contain 88 residential units across five building cores: two rising to five floors, two rising to eight floors, and one rising to 12 floors.

Image credit: Bjarke Ingels Group / LAMDA

From the outside, the scheme is defined by a curved concave facade which, the architects say, “creatively reimagines the classic Greek column while adding a soft geometry to the aesthetic.” Off-white glass-reinforced concrete with exposed aggregates is integrated into the facade to “harken to the natural landscape.”

I...

Sasaki Associates will lead in designing the largest public park in Athens, Greece

2023-08-03T13:52:00-04:00

The city of Athens is preparing for a groundbreaking addition to its already historic city. Thanks to the efforts of Lamda Development, the city will welcome Ellinikon Metropolitan Park, set to not only be the largest park in Athens but also "Europe's largest coastal park."

Urban Land's Bennett Voyles reports that "after 3,400 years, Athens will soon get its first big park [...] When completed in 2030, Ellinikon Metropolitan Park will be 600 acres (243 ha), about three-fourths the size of New York City’s Central Park, an enormous addition of public green space that may prove as important to Athenians as Central Park is to New Yorkers."

Project render of Ellinikon Metropolitan Park shows design details inspired by the Olympic venues. Image courtesy of Sasaki Associates.

Spearheaded by international planning and design firm Sasaki Associates, the site acts as another unique factor to the development, with areas of the new park being "leftover remnants" of venues from the 2002 Summer Ol...

Pritzker Prize winner David Chipperfield and others reflect on the role of architectural practice

2023-05-23T17:19:00-04:00

This year’s Pritzker Prize laureate David Chipperfield has concluded his remarks at the special awards ceremony and presentation held this morning at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).

Topics covered by Chipperfield’s address include the limits and responsibilities of practice, the market’s influence over the industry, and an overview of his career, all framed by the impetus of climate change and the responsibility of designers within the context of the current global architectural stasis.

Chipperfield began by paying homage to Le Corbusier, Josep Lluís Sert, and the other architects who met at the school for the influential Fourth CIAM Congress on urban planning in August of 1933, stating: “We find ourselves again, in this room, needing more than ever the sort of planning structures that were proposing in order that we can confront the environmental issues of our time.”

“We must become incr...

Renzo Piano’s trio of new hospitals in Greece will stand as 'modern design templates' in a changing world

2022-08-08T16:40:00-04:00

$750 million will bring a trio of much-needed modern hospital designs to Greece by way of Renzo Piano. This set of hospital projects is in collaboration with Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Health Initiative, which aims to deliver new hospital infrastructure and public healthcare in Greece. Elianna Konialis, lead of the SNF Health Initiative, shared with Nate Berg of FastCompany that the goal of these hospitals is to “improve access and quality of care in regions that are underserved.”

The city of Greece is a decade removed from the country’s plunge into economic and social calamity over public debts that have now rendered much of the healthcare system outside of Athens either inadequate or obsolete.

Ariel view of SNF University Pediatric Hospital of Thessaloniki. Image render courtesy Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

The Pritzker-winning architect and his firm have been tasked with the design and delivery of new facilities in Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta. The hospital in Thes...

The British Museum is under fire after refusing Parthenon Marbles 3D scan

2022-04-04T12:16:00-04:00

The British Museum is facing legal action from one of the UK’s leading heritage preservation organisations over its refusal to allow the 3D scanning of a piece in its Parthenon marbles collection. The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) said it would serve an injunction against the museum imminently, raising the stakes in the dispute between the two.

The 269-year-old institution is said to have refused a request from the Oxford-based Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) that would have reproduced a metope from the Acropolis’ south-facing facade for an important proof of concept. The scans are supposed to allow for a robotic replication process that can manipulate the original Pentelic marble material to “sub-millimeter” accuracy, according to the IDA.

Previously on Archinect: The UK is once again declining to change its stance on the Parthenon Marbles following a UNESCO statement

“Our aim is to give people a chance to see just how extraordinary a copy can be,” the Institute’s executive director Roger Michel told the Guardian. “Copies [of the Parthenon sculptures] in the past have been low-quality plaster casts. This will be orders of magnitude better. It will help people see and feel the potential of this technology in ways mere words can’t describe.”

The IDA nevertheless attempted last week to create a 3D scan using an “iPad ...

The UK is once again declining to change its stance on the Parthenon Marbles following a UNESCO statement

2021-10-06T16:43:00-04:00

The fate of the British Museum’s heavily contested Parthenon Marbles (also referred to as the Elgin Marbles) has once again come under clout after the UK decided to reject UNESCO’s request to reassess its position on repatriating the 2,500-year-old relics to their country of origin.

The UK is continuing on their insistence that the marbles were acquired through a legal means in the form of a contested firman granted to their namesake the Earl of Elgin by the Ottoman Empire around 1801.

The UN’s cultural arm had issued a statement at a recent ICPRCP meeting outlining its position that the dispute indeed constitutes an “intergovernmental issue” and not, as both the government and museum claim, an institutional one that can be sorted out “independently of the government and free from political interference,” according to UK officials.

Previously on Archinect: Brexit could force British Museum to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece

“The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the brea...

Athens has hired a new 'Chief Heat Officer' to help the city combat climate change

2021-08-26T16:45:00-04:00

Europe’s summer of natural disasters has included increasingly frequent extreme weather events [...] Ms. Myrivili’s appointment is a recognition of that new reality. But it is also a foreboding sign that having someone to grapple with suffocating temperatures may be a mainstay of the municipal cityscape, as necessary and unremarkable as a transportation, sanitation or police commissioner.

Other cities like Miami have retained administrators with similar titles. Athens is leading the way in terms of a loss of residents who are in large part moving to escape the heat. The country itself is expected to lose 8 million people in the next four years. Myrivili earned a PhD from Columbia University in 2004 and served as Athens' Deputy Mayor for Urban Nature, Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation from 2017 to 2019.

A scorching mid-summer heatwave combined with wildfires has forced the closure of several important cultural sites around the city.

The New York Times has a profile of Athens' newest city administrator here.

The Acropolis is closing amidst wildfire concerns

2021-08-05T17:32:00-04:00

Across southern Europe, large wildfires have so far killed eight people and caused mass evacuations while also threatening to damage ancient cultural sites. In Greece, authorities have partially closed the Acropolis and other major archaeological sites while battling with dozens of conflagrations around Athens.

Greece is currently in the midst of its worst heatwave in over thirty years, and the capital region has been squarely in the crosshairs as the heat has combined with encroaching wildfires to create an emergency situation in Athens. The UNESCO World Heritage Site has recently been the center of public debate as planned renovations have prompted a debate of the Acropolis' "correct appearance."

NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo may have been one of the last visitors before its closure. The Observer has more on the threats to archaeological sites around the city here.

Foster + Partners unveils designs for Greece's tallest tower

2021-07-09T15:27:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has released designs for what will be the tallest building in Greece. Located near Athens, Marina Tower will also be the first green high-rise building in Greece and the tallest green beachfront high-rise building in the Mediterranean.

Images © DBOX for Foster + Partners

The building is the centerpiece of a massive master plan, led by Foster + Partners and funded by Lamda Development, called the Ellinikon Masterplan. The project will sit on the site of the vacant Ellinikon International Airport and will include the construction of mixed-use districts as well as five other new skyscrapers.

The Marina Tower will stand at 650 feet tall and will contain 200 apartments on 45 floors. The high-rise is slender with a façade defined by balconies and hanging gardens. The extensive greenery reportedly allows the building to blend in with the surrounding natural environment and “the special character of the Mediterranean landscape.”

Images © DBOX for Foster + Partners

Accordi...

Planned Acropolis renovation draws opposition from experts

2021-04-28T18:56:00-04:00

Plans for a major renovation project to the western entrance of the Acropolis have been met with strong opposition from archaeologists in Greece and across the world. In an open letter to the public, the signatories, including figures from the universities of Oxford, Durham and Brown, called for the cancellation of a project they believe will lead to the “devaluation, concealment and degradation of the greatest archaeological and artistic treasure that has been bequeathed to modern Greece”.

At the center of the controversy is the argument over the "correct appearance" of the historic Acropolis site in Athens that has experienced multiple additions, restorations, and excavations over the years.

According to The Art Newspaper, the group opposed to the planned renovation believes that the intervention was "contrary to the internationally recognized and established principles concerning the preservation, conservation and safeguarding of antiquities."

New hotel blocking Acropolis view must demolish top floors

2020-05-11T13:40:00-04:00

A battle over the right to enjoy uninterrupted views of the Acropolis has resulted in a five-star hotel being ordered to demolish its top two floors, in a landmark ruling hailed by residents of Athens. [...] Citizens enraged about the ten-storey establishment blocking their own views of the citadel took the case to the highest court in the land.

Activists in the Greek capital have been rallying against a number of high-rise proposals that could substantially block the view of the city's most priced historic landmark.

The court's decision in the most recent luxury hotel case wasn't easy, however, as The Guardian points out: "In 2012, in the midst of Greece’s economic crisis, a new construction code was passed permitting bigger and taller buildings if they met 'green' standards. Investors seized the opportunity, initiating a building spree in a capital that would subsequently attract record tourist arrivals."

Brexit could force British Museum to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece

2020-02-18T18:39:00-05:00

As the United Kingdom works to strike new trade deals with Europe following Brexit, Greek authorities are using the occasion to try and negotiate a return of the country's long-lost Parthenon Marbles (also referred to as the Elgin Marbles).

Reuters reports that Greek officials have included new language supporting repatriation of the marbles in a document crafted by the 27 European Union nations that will envision the group's new economic and cultural relationship with the United Kingdom following its exit from the EU on January 31, 2020.

A detail view of the statuary. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Ejectgoose.

The document, according to Reuters, seeks the “return or restitution of unlawfully removed cultural objects to their countries of origin” and comes as Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis makes a formal offer to British Museum authorities, where the marbles are currently held, to temporarily trade the Parthenon Marbles for a series of ancient Greek artifacts that "have...

Deadline to apply for AA Athens Visiting School is approaching!

2017-05-22T03:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Athens Visiting School.

AA Athens Visiting Schools will be hosting their workshop, Symmetry Sentience, from June 12th through the 22nd and the deadline is approaching—you have until May 29th to submit your online application form and fees!

Our world has been enriched by numerous interactive means that connect us across the different continents. These amplifications take place through various media that in turn estrange people from their surroundings. Our built environment continues to evolve, into an interconnected hyperspace where architecture can be fluid, flexible and vivid. In 2017, AA Athens Visiting School, will address architectural themes involving active engagement and participatory design through prototypes that are characterized by action.

Apply now for the AA Athens Visiting School: Symmetry Sentience workshop

2017-04-11T06:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Athens Visiting School.

Symmetry Sentience
Monday 12 - Thursday 22 June 2017

Action-designed structures enabled by technology today, begin to timidly move beyond the utopian proposals of the 20th century’s manifestos and hold a place in the world of realized designs. The AA Athens Visiting School incorporates in the design process, materials and scientific devices as vital parts of the end-creations. The research aims at bringing closer the ...

Only a few days left to sign up for AA Chania Visiting School Progressions, 4-14 October 2016

2016-09-05T03:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Greece Visiting School.

AA Chania Progressions::
4 October – 14 October 2016

In 2016, the AA Chania Visiting School will continue to pursue its design agenda concentrating on the bigger picture of the Chania city’s characteristics. The city of Chania is the second largest city of Crete. Chania can be divided in two parts: the old town and the modern city which is the larger one. The Visiting School will revisit the way by which the built environment has been put together and will explore design possibilities which can be applied in order to improve connectivity and functionality in the city. Interactive design coupled with generative form-finding techniques towards the fabrication and assembly of a 1-to-1 scale prototype will be investigated.

AA Greece Visiting School :: Chania 2016 : Teaser I from AI on Vimeo.

Each year a series of software tutorial sessions takes place in order to allow participants develop their basic skills on controlling models par...

Sign up now for AA Chania Visiting School Progressions, 4-14 October 2016

2016-08-10T12:32:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Greece Visiting School.

AA Chania Progressions::
4 October – 14 October 2016

Each year a series of software tutorial sessions takes place in order to allow participants develop their basic skills on controlling models parametrically and on producing interactive presentations. These session...

Ai Weiwei's latest works focus on refugee crisis in Greece

2016-05-23T17:23:00-04:00

the artist says we should not “sentimentalise or romanticise” the crisis, which has seen more than 2,000 children die on their way to Europe. [...] Ai first visited Lesbos on Christmas Day last year, and has since dedicated most of his life to helping refugees there, even moving his studio to the island. [...] “The goal is to make everyone conscious of the struggle of refugees. We need to protect humanity. The fight is endless. If we don’t fight, our children have to fight,” he says.

Related on Archinect:

Tensions build at Athen's port of Piraeus, the first stop for many refugees seeking asylum in Europe

2016-04-26T12:52:00-04:00

Squalid, chaotic, overwhelmed: Piraeus is the first port of call for the thousands now trapped in the capital, on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. Since the closure of Greece’s northern border and with it the Balkan migrant trail – a move that has resulted in more than 46,000 stranded on the Greek mainland – it has been emblematic of the country’s inability to cope with a situation few had envisaged.

"In passenger terminals never built to deal with a humanitarian crisis, facilities have been rudimentary, tensions high, and resources vastly overstretched."

The article notes that the growing refugee population is putting pressure on Athenian society, which was already tense as the country continues to struggles under crippling austerity measures imposed by the European Union. Far-right movements, like the Golden Dawn, are gaining popularity.

Meanwhile, a plan sponsored by the UN Refugee Agency proposes to house up to 20,000 refugees in private apartments around the capital.

For more on the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East, check out these links:

Ai Weiwei documents life in Greek refugee camp on social media

2015-12-30T14:12:00-05:00

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is visiting Lesbos to document the plight of thousands of refugees who arrive daily on the Greek island by boat from Turkey. For the past two days, Ai has been photographing orange rubber dinghies coming into shore, families huddled around fires, people queuing to register at the Moria refugee camp and piles of discarded lifejackets, among other scenes [...] It is understood Ai will be creating a work in response to the refugee crisis.

Here are just a few of Ai Weiwei's recent photos from the Lesbos refugee camp; giving a human face to people and entire families escaping war and persecution in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, as well as documenting humanitarian workers, such as the Norwegian group, Drop in the Ocean.

All photos by Ai Weiwei via @aiww on Instagram.

Could building a giant Helios statue help pull Greece out of its debt crisis?

2015-11-09T13:20:00-05:00

Until an earthquake in 226 BCE knocked it down, the Colossus of Rhodes, a 98-foot-high iron and bronze statue of the Greek god Helios, sat near the harbor of Rhodes, Greece, for 54 years. Now a plan put forth by a small team of scientists seeks to rebuild the ancient statue and boost tourism and local jobs in the process. [...] The proposal also includes an interior library, museum, cultural center, exhibition hall, and, of course, a crowning lighthouse

Learn more about the initiative on the Colossus of Rhodes project site:

The idea of building a contemporary Colossus of Rhodes begun to arise in the ideas of some young professionals, after the break out of the economic crisis in Greece. As unemployment rose and destroyed dreams and ambitions of a whole generation, they tried to work together for a common purpose. Their main task was to make Rhodes a new point of reference for the whole world, to follow a new path and find a solution to the issues that caused such a big sorrow to thousands of people, forced to flee abroad.

11,000 year lease: the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities

2015-08-06T09:35:00-04:00

What makes a city habitable for centuries, even millennia? This list of the twelve longest-inhabited cities compiled by the Mother Nature Network, which includes several in ISIS-plagued Syria, one in China, and one in India, unsurprisingly points toward temperate climate, relatively stable water supply, and a certain intangible tenacity on the part of its human inhabitants (perhaps due to the existence of sacred religious sites). Here's the full list and number of years of estimated continuous occupation:

12. Varanasi, India (3,000 Years)

11. Luoyang, China (4,000 Years)

10. Jerusalem (4-5,000 Years)

9. Rayy, Iran (5-6,000 Years)

8. Sidon, Lebanon (6,000 Years)

7. Byblos, Lebanon (5,000 Years)

6. Plovdiv, Bulgaria (6,000 Years)

5. Argos, Greece (7,000 Years)

4. Athens, Greece (7,000 Years)

3. Aleppo, Syria (8,000 Years)

2. Jericho, West Bank (11,000 Years)

1. Damascus, Syria (11,000 Years)

Greek museums can't afford to keep the doors open

2015-07-09T13:51:00-04:00

Major public cultural institutions in Greece are on the point of collapse, say leading Greek art professionals, as concerns mount that the country faces insolvency after 61% of the population rejected bailout proposals earlier this week made by international creditors.

Architecture in crisis: reports from Greece

2015-07-06T17:00:00-04:00

The dust is yet to settle in Greece, as the pronounced “No!” of yesterday’s referendum reverberates across Europe. The vote marked a clear rejection by the Greek people of enforced austerity as the price for staying in the Eurozone. It also signaled continued confidence in Alexis Tsipras and the Syria government, despite hope from the leaders of Europe’s surplus economies for a regime change.

With reports from Athens detailing a grim scene of shuttered ATM’s and closed factories, the country’s future remains uncertain.

Many have compared the current situation to the great depression of the 1930’s, and it’s clear that no economic sector is immune to its ramifications – let alone architecture, a field markedly tethered to economic undulations. Archinect reached out to a couple of its members to get a pulse on what’s happening, as well as what it’s been like to live under austerity for nearly a decade.

“The future of architecture in Greece if the economic crisis is not handled,” wrote C...

LAST REMINDER: Application deadline for AA Greece Visiting School - Folded Force is Sept. 15!

2014-09-10T13:22:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Greece Visiting School:

There's less than a week left to apply for the AA Greece Visiting School - Folded Force fall program. All current architecture and design students, Ph.D. candidates and young professionals are welcome to apply.

Starting September 22 to October 1, this year's installment will feature a series of traveling, mobile workshops that will begin in the Western Greece capital of Patras.

Apply now before the deadline next Monday, September 15! You can apply online here or email visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk for instructions.

More details below.

"AA Greece Visiting School is a mobile workshop series which travels and reaches cities outside the country’s capital. It functions as a ‘satellite’ of education that promotes the Architectural Association’s exclusive, intensive form of teaching and learning around the country. AA Greece VS aims on visiting a different city each year and construct a single large-scale model which will act as an activ...

Ten years on, Athens 2004 gives Greece little to cheer

2014-08-11T18:50:00-04:00

It was billed as a chance to transform Greece's image abroad and boost growth but 10 years after the country hosted the world's greatest sporting extravaganza there is little to celebrate at the birthplace of the modern Olympic Games. [...] For Greeks who swelled with pride at the time, the Games are now a source of anger as the country struggles through a six-year depression, record unemployment, homelessness and poverty. Greece has struggled to generate revenue from the venues.

Registration is open for AA Greece Visiting School - Folded Force

2014-07-14T20:50:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by AA Greece Visiting School:

The AA Visiting School program is accepting applications for another promising installment this fall: AA Greece Visiting School will come to Patras, the capital of the Western Greece region, and function as a series of mobile, traveling workshops.

The event runs from Monday, September 22 until Wednesday, October 1, 2014 and is open to all current architecture and design students, PhD candidates and young professionals.

You can apply online here or email visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk for instructions. Deadline for applications is September 15, 2014.

Find more details below or click here.

Watch Renzo Piano's construction cranes "dance" in Athens

2014-06-27T13:02:00-04:00

While Renzo Piano's Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (SNFCC) is still under construction, it didn't keep the first performance from being staged last Wednesday on the site. Based on Renzo Piano's own idea, the Greek National Orchestra scored a 15-minute "dance" performance of ten giant cranes on the construction site, conducted by Artistic Director of the Greek National Opera, Myron Michailidis.

The cranes' dance was choreographed by Renato Zanella, to music from Gustav Holst's The Planets -- all with the Pantheon in the background.

The SNFCC is scheduled to open in 2016, and will include the new home for the Greek National Opera, the National Library of Greece, and a 42-acre public park.

You can watch the entire performance below (begins at 10:00):

Greece protests over government plans to sell off historic national buildings

2014-03-19T20:55:00-04:00

Greece's cultural gems have become the focus of renewed protest on the streets of Athens following the cash-strapped government's announcement of plans to include prime properties around the Acropolis, and other landmark buildings, in its privatisation programme. Furious opponents marched through the city centre at the weekend to denounce the "illegal sale" of the country's heritage.

Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery

2013-11-19T19:54:00-05:00

Ann Beha Architects from Boston, MA was selected by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for a major rehabilitation project of the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece. Walter Gropius and consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios designed the iconic embassy from 1959-1961. The building is also listed as a protected architectural landmark.

Ann Beha Architects was given the task out of four shortlisted teams that included: DesignLab Architects, Inc. (Boston, MA); Machado Silvetti / Baker (Boston, MA); and Mark Cavagnero Associates (San Francisco, CA).

Previously: Four Design Teams Shortlisted for Major Rehabilitation of Gropius-Designed Athens Chancery

Four Design Teams Shortlisted for Major Rehabilitation of Gropius-Designed Athens Chancery

2013-05-15T19:26:00-04:00

Four design firms have been shortlisted by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for the major rehabilitation of the Athens Chancery project. The iconic modernist embassy building, designed by Walter Gropius with consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios, was constructed between 1959 and 1961 and is a protected architectural landmark.

The shortlisted firms are:

Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA
DesignLab Architects, Inc., Boston, MA
Machado Silvetti / Baker, Boston, MA
Mark Cavagnero Associates, San Francisco, CA

UPDATE: Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery