Athens
2.36
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2013
2.37
2.38 2.36 – 2.38 Yunzhu Guo Against Domestic City. The polykatoikia can be read as both the cause and the effect in the urbanisation of modern Athens. Urbanisation was realised through the system of ‘antiparochi’ – the exchange between land properties and built dwellings – without money involved. This process met the massive demand for living space and stimulated further infinite domestic expansion resulting in a lack of public space. Athens can be regarded as an absolute domestic city. The project proposes an intervention in the polykatoikia in order to suggest the possibility for a new public within the domestic realm. The project aims to break through the currently closed-off urban block, connecting its interior to the surrounding streets and injecting public programmes throughout. By the insertion of new dwellings
on top of the existing buildings, the rooftop space becomes a potential for commonality as the possible interaction between old and new. 2.36 Concept. 2.37 Strategy. 2.38 The gesture of the wall cutting through the block indicates the public has been permitted into what was formerly the domestic realm, which opens up a new procedure against domestic city.
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