Konstantinos Retsinas - Selected Projects

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2021

KONSTANTINOS RETSINAS

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Selected Projects

Selected Projects

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Table of Contents

meta-MEGA the Growth of Megaforms Lies within their Decline 04

Paradox-City New Complexity & Programmatic Mixity 10

Elephant and Castle a Slow Transformation 14

Sky City Overlapping & Multi-Scalar Challenges in Wood Green 16

Domesti-city Typological Study and Analysis of Domesticity 24

Poveglia Broadening the Urban Territory of Venice 26

Nicosia the Excavtion Project: Markets below the City 30

Utopia from T.More to P.V.Aureli: where two Works Meet 32

Mets Architectural Intervention in Athens 34

Drama School Structural Analysis & Detailing of Elements 35

Lycabetus Running up the Hill 36

Eleusis the Imaginary Museum 37

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Konstantinos Retsinas

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Bio

b. 18.11.1993, Greece t. +44 (0)7933514459 e. retsinaskost@gmail.com a. 211 Berglen Court 7 Branch Road E14 7JZ, LONDON https://www.linkedin.com/ in/konstantinos-retsinas-54a4a4175/ Konstantinos is an architectural researcher and practitioner of urban design. As part of the new generation of City Design at the RCA he challenged existing models of city design practice. After having completed a 5 year Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, his diploma thesis was nominated for the Young Talent Architecture Award 2018 by the Mies Van der Rohe Institute. Then, he gained academic experience as a teaching assistant in Architectural and Urban Design Studio 9, at the NTUA. He took on several design jobs to gain further experience in practice, while his work has been exhibited in Athens, Eleusina, Nicosia, and London. Amongst many distinctions, as a Eugenides Foundation Scholar, Konstantinos was able to complete an MA degree at the RCA. links https://2020.rca.ac.uk/students/ konstantinos-retsinas https://issuu.com/retsinaskost/ docs/konstantinos_retsinas-irp https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0NXEghUN0zg&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=konstantinosretsinas http://ytaa.miesbcn.com/ work/600 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mqz4sSZPiDs&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=konstantinosretsinas 3

metaMEGA

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the Growth of Megaforms Lies within their Decline

Independent Research Project Royal College of Art, 2020 individual project supervised by Cristina Goberna Pesudo mentored by James Denner ACME architects, London My anticipation of certain architectures is a future of collapse and decay that renders them ‘unproductive’. Then, why, after having been liberated from human occupation and completely abandoned do they still remain standing?

As if by protest, they object to being exhausted by human and programmatic use, they do not give up on existence.

To think of an afterlife for these buildings, firstly requires one to view them in a way which would render them completely abandoned. Secondly one should find the appropriate agency through which to intervene by doing very little, with the purpose of allowing the building the possibility of continuous transformations. If a depository of buildings is what we are left with, their remains can be perceived like the undead; paradoxically refusing to die.

This collapse, decay and underutilisation of these forms should not be construed as a negative aspect of their existence, but rather as their life renewed.

Declining infrastructures abandoned buildings underutilized spaces In my research, I looked into architectures of a ‘mega’ scale by developing a speculative and critical ethos towards them. My scope wasn’t only to exaggerate the several problems that the built environment undergoes including underutilisation, failure, decay and collapse of different kinds, but also to challenge one’s thinking on how to apply optimism and growth to the failure of ‘mega’ architectures that lie within their decline. The project attempted to generate a speculative method with which buildings of this scale can be treated by expanding the common architectural vision.

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D01 Post Apocalyptic Landscape

D02 Growth by Decline

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D03 Sky City as a Landscape

D04 meta-MEGA Section

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D05 Manifesto Point

D06 meta-MEGA Interior

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ParadoxCity

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New Complexity & Programmatic Mixity

Sci-Tech Seminar RCA, 2020 supervised by Cristina Goberna Pesudo in collaboration with Seungyel Lee Under Covid-19 some airports served as hospitals and most houses served as offices, schools and playgrounds.

So, everyday activities became contained within the scale of the block. In our project, we aimed to intervene sectionally in the urban fabric by contaminating buildings in the scale of mega, super, high, big with hybridism to bring housing, work, leisure together - similarly to what Covid-19 imposed - along with infrastructures, health care, and wellbeing facilities.

D07 Epic Data

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D08 Epic City Towards the state of mixing where many different uses of space that normally don’t coexist, came together, we established new complexities and programmatic mixity by fighting against homogeneity, segregation as seen in monocultural, architectural programmes such as shopping cities that no longer provide a meaningful relationship; we thought of the city as an archipelago in which the island becomes its defining form and life is contained within it. Under the extreme circumstances at that time we tested ecologies where new relationships were to emerge allowing social, professional and domestic conflicts in the scale of the building block. utopia/dystopia video presentation manifesto

link https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0NXEghUN0zg&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=konstantinosretsinas

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D09 Epic Street

D10 Epic Architecture

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M01 Displacement of People from Heygate Estate Overlaped with the Deprivation Map SOURCE: ©THE GUARDIAN Nov 2016 & IMD 2019

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a Slow Transformation

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Elephant & Castle

Case Study, RCA, 2020 supervised by Mark Smith Dr Tarsha Finney in collaboration with Seungyel Lee Urban transformation and housing renewal have been taking place in Elephant and Castle in South London for almost 10 years since the demolition of Heygate Estate started in 2011. There is no such a big intervention within the city that can be understood out of the context of gentrification. The value coming from housing land - along with the other uses like education that were introduced in the area - highlight the main issues that arise. “Decant” people during the demolition of a housing estate which was home to 3000 people, allowed a series of questions to follow regarding the displacement of these people, the role of social housing and access to affordable houses.

Large Complex Urban Projects, Dossier

D11 Trafalgar Place’s Frontages and Analysis before (above) & after (below) Pedaways Residential Frontage Parking Entrance Inactive Frontage Pedestrian Network 15

Sky City

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Overlapping & Multi-Scalar Challenges in Wood Green

Design Studio I Inherent Attributes of Sky City’s Typology RCA, 2020 supervised by Dr Tarsha Finney Mark Smith Sabrina Puddu in collaboration with Seungyeol Lee Sky City is a residential complex that lays above a mixeduse shopping centre known as The Mall Wood Green and it was completed in 1981 after the second phase of the construction, designed by Richard Sheppard Robson & Partners. The analysis focuses on its typology, understanding its role as social housing and how it functions. More specifically, this research project aimed at introducing what the problems of the complex Sky City are along with positioning Sky City in a trajectory or architectural precedents.

Theory, Site Architectural Precedents Wood Green in Multiple Scales

D12 Typological Comparison of Sky City’s Apartment (right) with the Model Apartment (left) fromt the Great Exhibition 1851 unit private bedroom kitchen & bathrooms living space storage 16

D13 Positioning Sky City (below) in a Trajectory Typological Comparison with Dunboyne Road Estate (above) private to the unit built space shared among residents shared with the public no use 17

1-3285 3285-6570 6570-9854 9854-13138 13138-16423 16423-19707 19707-22991 22991-26275 26275-29560 M02 Indices of Multiple Deprivation London, Scale 1/200000 SOURCE: IMD 2019

M03 Map of Young Population [aged 20-24] in Haringey, Scale 1/60000 SOURCE: CENSUS 2011

0-19 19-33 33-57 57-118 118-211 18

GIS Data, Deprivation CENSUS, Inequity Housing needs to be addressed differently. As the composition of attributes changes, a new classification system is created and evolved. Therefore, if housing in response to care, and integration seems to be problematic, rethinking of the domestic units could reveal the identity of a revisited housing type that could apply to contemporary needs and address further urban development.

0-2 2-4 4-8 8-17 17-31 31-64 64-527 M04 Economic Inactive /sq km in London, Scale1/200000 SOURCE: CENSUS 2011

M05 Houses within Commercial Buildings, Scale 1/60000 SOURCE: CENSUS 2011 & ORDNANCE SURVEY 0-5 5-18 18-40 40-82 82-133 Retail Areas 19

Design Studio II Housing Renewal & Health Care Infrastructures RCA, 2020 supervised by Dr Tarsha finney Mark Smith in collaboration with Seungyeol Lee This strategy addressed urgent questions of renewing social housing in London according to shifting demographics and attempts to re-intervene the idea of mixity in existing development by introducing health care and infrastructures. Among the biggest challenges of the project, this research addressed questions around the notions of urban density, programmatic mixity and typological thinking in terms of the domestic sphere.

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D14 Types of Care & Use of Space

D15 Introducing Infrastructures for Life

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D16 Matrix of Proposed Uses

New Housing cluster apartments

Infrastructural Layer shared amenities outdoor space existing housing winter gardens

First Floor storage market extension offices

Ground Floor storage | distribution permanent stalls 22

Design Studio III Reconfiguring Domesticity & the New Local RCA, 2020 supervised by Dr Tarsha Finney Mark Smith in collaboration with Seungyel Lee In response to the new localism that emerged during Covid-19, along with delivery and logistic networks that strengthened more and more this project unpacked the logic of distribution. One of its manifestations was the market proposed to take over on a new Thickened Ground along with light industrial spaces such as warehouses and storage spaces that the city’s center and North London demanded for. Markets embody a dialectical and multiscalar relationship with the urban environment that in the case of Sky City challenged new types of housing within such a busy environment and relatively to a new kind of domesticity that the project proposed.

Market, High Street Network of Distribution

M06 Houses within Commercial Buildings, Scale 1/60000 SOURCES: CENSUS 2011 15’ walk 15’ bike 2 km 1 km existing centers existing retail centers proposed local centers 23

Domesticity

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Typological Study & Analysis of Domesticity

Typological Study & analysis RCA, 2020 Premodern / House XXXVI Modern / Neue Stadt Institution / Women’s Dormitory supervised by Sabrina Puddu in collaboration with Seungyeol Lee

D17 House XXXVI / Unit to Whole unit whole 24

D18 Women’s Dormitory / Circulation primary access to unit circulation secondary access to unit secondary circulation

D19 Neue Stadt / Programme 1 kitchen 2 bathroom 3 living room

private to the unit service / wet spaces shared among residents shared with the public 25

Housing Typology 01 Housing Typology 02 Housing Typology 03 Workshops Workspace Multipurpose Market Auditorium D20 Masterplan

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Broadening the Urban Territory of Venice

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Poveglia

Diploma Thesis National Technical University of Athens, 2016-17 individual project supervised by Ariadni Vozani Bouki Babalou Noukaki This Diploma Thesis was a proposal for reactivating the abandoned island of Poveglia in the Venetian Lagoon.

Poveglia is a complex of three small islands that have been abandoned for last 50 years, south of the historical center of Venice. The island was at different times a place of displacementnof different population groups (plague victims, mental patients, etc.). Ensuring the organization of an urban environment with a specific identity and linking it to the mythical city of Venice are two of the things that this diploma thesis focused on.

Distinction NTUA’s entry for Young Talent Architecture Award 2018 by the Mies van der Rohe Institute According to the architectural programme proposed, the island was to provide houses for students, commuters, citizens and visitors of Venice in general. The masterplan conducted refered to housing as the general use and some other secondary uses.

F01 View from the Canal

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F02 Projects’s Model scale 1/500

D21 Cross Section of the Island

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Nicosia

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the Excavation project: Markets below the City

Urban Design 09 NTUA, 2015 supervised by Andreas Kourkoulas Athanasios Pagonis Ariadni Vozani in collaboration with Anna Koka Artemis Papadopoulou The main concept of unificating two existing markets was strengthened by the proposal for a third underground flea market providing the two different poles with a covered passage. It was designed as a non-building with open structure, hosting merchants and various transactions.

Between these two levels many transactions could take place and relationships would evolve. The market would operate as a place which represents the public life.

participations DEAD ZONE NICOSIA led by the NTUA and the Embassy of Cyprus in Athens, held at the Embassy of Cyprus in Athens, Greece THE URBANIZATION OF (IN) JUSTICE: PUBLIC SPACES IN UNCERTAIN GEOGRAPHIES led by the Cyprus Network of Urban Morphology and the Association of European Schools of Planning, held at Ledra Palace, Nicosia, Cyprus

D22 Plan of the Underground Level

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D23 View from the Ground Level

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D24 Graphic Reconstitution of the Island of Utopia

F03 Photograph of the Book

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from T. More to P. V. Aureli: where two Works Meet

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Utopia

Dissertation, NTUA, 2016 individual project supervised by Ariadni Vozani

This thesis was based on the dialectic of two works. The first one was “Utopia” by Sir Thomas More. The word “utopia” appeared for the first time in More’s work in 1516 and later became a definition used in everyday speech to describe animaginary and perfect place. The second work was the project “City Walls” which is a proposal for a new administrative city in South Korea by DOGMA and KGDVS office in 2005. After having analyzed the two works, I intended to make clear what these two works have in common. What characteristics must a proposal have in order to be classed as a utopian work? After having proved that this one has the characteristics needed, can it be used to interpret the work of More?

Research, Book Design Book Binding Finall, I tried to use the grammar of architectural components that the project “City Walls” introduces to reinterpret the image of More’s Utopian city. Last but not least, the city plan that DOGMA and office KGDVS propose, reminds us of a city where everything is reversed due to the built mass and the open space. Then, what is an ordinary plan for a city, so as the plan of City Walls to be called unordinary? Utopia - the place that doesn’t exist- is the so-called regular.

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Mets

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Architectural Intervention in Athens

Architectural Design 04 NTUA, 2013 supervised by Sofia Tsiraki in collaboration with Katerina Papaderou

D25 Hand-drawn Perspective View

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Structural Analysis & Detailing of Elements

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Drama School

Architectural Design 07-08 NTUA, 2017 supervised by Sofia Tsiraki Costas Caradimas in collaboration with Katerina Papaderou Ektoras Kallergis

F04 Projects’s Model scale 1/50

D26 Detailed Section scale 1/10

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Lycabetus

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Running up the Hill

Architectural Design 8A NTUA, 2015 supervised by Andreas Kourkoulas Helen Haniotou in collaboration with Anna Koka Nikos Rossis

D27 Plan & Hand-drawn Elevation

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the Imaginary Museum

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Eleusis

Installation Art, 2015-16 supervised by Vana Xenou in collaboration with Katerina Papaderou

exhibition 9 TRANSITIONS: THE IMAGINARY MUSEUM led by NTUA, Eleusis 2021 European Capital of Culture Candidate City and Municipality of Eleusis, held at Old Oil Mill Factory, Eleusis

F05 Photograph of the Installation

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F06 Photograph of a Model scale 1/200

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b. 18.11.1993, Greece t. +44 (0)7933514459 e. retsinaskost@gmail.com a. 211 Berglen Court 7 Branch Road E14 7JZ, LONDON https://www.linkedin.com/ in/konstantinos-retsinas-54a4a4175/

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