MSA Students in Thessaloniki

Presentation in Munster, Wednesday 16 December 2009

This is an exciting project intended to enhance your creative and practical skills required to deal with the increasing complexity and multicultural tradition of our city, the city of Thessaloniki, and its public spaces through the design of a specific public building, the 'Center for Transcultural Communication. The project draws upon its unrivalled setting in Thessaloniki - a place of dynamic urban changes, cultural diversity, award-winning regeneration schemes, and innovative approaches to the problems and opportunities produced by such transformations.

The project will adopt an education philosophy based on knowing-in-action, integrating theory in a workshop-based format. It will develop the creative and practical design skills between urban and architectural scale. The design studio will act as the very hub of the project and will provide a test bed for fresh approaches, ideas, theories and design interventions that deal with contemporary issues and the diverse activities of architectural-urban design in type and scale. The public building you are asked to design is concerned with the urban quality of specific public places that surround the site. We will specifically work on infilling a site on the Port with a bold proposal that will enhance the site and will accommodate and facilitate intercultural exchange.

The City

-Thessaloniki as a crossroad
-A multicultural city at least in the last three centuries
-Migration and immigration
-A significant number of immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa, China
-Contemporary Thessaloniki a multi-cultural, multinational, multi religion European environment

Aim of the Project

Under the strong internationalization tendencies, to re-think and to protect the different, the unfamiliar, the unknown, the strange, the varying, that is to say the OTHER could be an imperative priority

The content of the project

The Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the City of Thessaloniki have decided to create the 'Center for Transcultural Communication' in order to enhance the integration of the Greek society with the immigrants, the locals and the 'others'; to offer possibilities and opportunities to other cultures to be present and to be presented, re-presented, integrated, accepted, understood, amalgamated, promoted and advocated.

The Site

The site of the project is located on the entrance of the old port of Thessaloniki. An area which is actually is more and more dedicated to cultural activities of the city. There are two proposed alternatives of the location of the Center from which students will have the possibility to select one and to argue on their choice.

The Brief

The open-ended brief for the buildings expects you to accommodate a versatile space for exhibition and other events, a small auditorium (200 seats), two small office spaces, a meeting room, a cafe with facilities that can act as the infrastructure for food festivals outdoors. It would be interesting to anticipate that the threshold between outdoor and indoor space should b loose as the local weather allows for activities outdoor for more than 1/3 of the year. The language and materiality of the building could be investigated to address, reflect and express its multicultural physiognomy, always situated and part of its strong urban context of the city of Thessaloniki.

Considerations

The public building in a given context

The public building and its content

The content of the building and the content of the city

The Process

Wednesday 25.11 Data collection and analysis

Thursday 26.11 Identification of problems and conflicts

Friday 27.11 Presentation of complex data and ideas. Negotiation and meditation

Wednesday 16.12 Final presentation of the project