Plakias master plan

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Fig 37. RUBIO Laura, Digital Photomontage - Plakias Master plan.

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The diverse morphological structure of the area of Plakias extends from the canon of Kotsifou, passing through the beach and the rocky formation of Korify on the east side. The look is confined by these monumental rocks.

In this study project, commissioned by the governmental administration, 25 an exercise of symbiosis between construction and nature is carried out. In a general view, the architectural complex consists of four different components; the formalization of the existing fishing settlement and its unloading dock, the beach that, allows the force of the wind to circulate, to erect in the short section of the Kotisifou canyon a mechanism of wind turbines, a technological monument that can supply the energy demand of the Liakota hotel, attached to the cliff surface of Korify.

The unusual topography, added to an intense confidence in the technical progress, at that time apparently exponential, prompt the radical constructive conception of the hotel, which not only gives value to the landscape in which it is sedimented, but also denies the frequent dichotomy between construction and nature, placing both at the same level.26 Such intermediate link that Zenetos conceives , establishes the petrification of the mountain, considering that the mountain covered by a system of stepped terraces of concrete, extended longitudinally

(Right) Fig 38 and 39. ZENETOS Takis, General Urban plan, taken from ‘Takis Zenetos 1926,-977, Ορέστης Β Δουμανης, ‘World Architecture 4, London Magazine’

25. The possibility of expanding the growing tourist demand from Athens to the whole of Greece was reflected at the time in urban planning policies at the national and regional levels. In the case of Crete, the local administration commissioned a series of studies focusing on tourism infrastructure, studies of which Zenetos participated with the master plan for integral development in Plakias, as well as studies for the region of Heraklion and Agia Galini . In these proposals the constant solution was a fluid and permeable structure to the landscape.

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along the entire slope, under which the houses are hidden.

In this sense, there is a correspondence with what Martinez and Pemjeam would call ‘sloped carpet’ 27 referring to the adaptive solution of Alejandro de la Sota in the housing complex in Santander and, in the Roq et Rob of Le Corbusier, since both projects are located on a steep topography that covers the hillside, in order to obtain the continuous base plane to dispose the dwelling. In both cases there is a sequence from the interior street, housing, terrace or loggia and, finally, landscape.

Similarly, the project shows, with a vague solution of the section, the architect interest in achieving a frontal plane free of elements that are not strictly horizontal. For this purpose, it uses a circulation mechanism that flows in and out of the rock, substrate and vertically connects the terrace system, till the seabed. In this way he manages to hide the essential vertical elements, that, in effect, would break with the horizontal character of the mass inserted in the landscape.

The logic of the project assumes the technological challenge as the main idea. The use of prefabricated elements and mass-produced becomes recognizable in the two expansion prototypes, adapted to the morphological premises; the first one is embedded to the areas where the terrain had an acute inclination,; each piece is supported by a single vertical el-

(Right) Fig 40. ZENETOS Takis, Wind turbines proposal, taken from ‘Takis Zenetos 1926,-977, Ορέστης Β Δουμανης, ‘World Architecture 4, London Magazine’

26. “Urban naturalism, the introduction of the picturesque in the city and in architecture, the appreciation of the landscape by the artistic ideology, tend to deny the already evident dichotomy between urban and rural reality; they serve to persuade that there is no such thing as a valuation of nature and the valorisation of the city as a productive machine of new forms of economic accumulation..” TAFURI, CACCIARI y DAL CO, De la vanguardia a la metrópoli, pág 21.

27. MARTINEZ y PEMJEAM, Alejandro de la Sota 4 Agrupaciones de vivienda, pág143.

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ement and a turnbuckle that avoids overturning where the structure is prone to failure. Each one is arranged behind other, displaced to enough distance so as not to obstruct the panoramic effect in any way. Likewise, the second prototype consists in a series of individual modules suspended from the areas where the rock is completely vertical. The structural challenge of the proposal is clear, so the architect chooses to anchoring three unit modules by the lightened slabs to the sock stratum, fixed by mean a tensor. In the back of the system, the circulation is disposed, ensures in this way, the unhindered visual relationship with the backdrop.

Fig 41. DE LA SOTA Alejandro, Housing complex in Santander, Alejandro de la Sota, taken from ‘Alejandro de la Sota, 4 agrupaciones urbanas, Martinez y Pemjam, 2007’

Fig 42. LE CORBUSIER, Roq et Rob, taken from ‘Alejandro de la Sota, 4 agrupaciones urbanas, Martinez y Pemjam, 2007’

(Right) Fig 43. ZENETOS Takis, Liakota hotel front view, taken from ‘Alejandro de la Sota, 4 agrupaciones urbanas, Martinez y Pemjam, 2007’ 68

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Fig 44. ZENETOS Takis, Adaptive solution on the slope, taken from ‘Takis Zenetos 1926,977, Ορέστης Β Δουμανης, ‘World Architecture 4, London Magazine’

(Right) Fig 45. ZENETOS Takis, Hotel Liakota perspective, ibidem.

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