ATHENS & PIRAEUS | Projects & Construction

City center overhaul soon to start
First phase, which will see a new square created in central Athens, is due to begin in two weeks
A plan to revamp the center of Athens, where crime and squalor have become rife over the last few years, by creating new public spaces and overhauling some of the existing ones will begin in about two weeks, Kathimerini learned yesterday.

As announced in February, the Environment Ministry and the City of Athens have agreed to make a number of architectural and urban landscaping interventions in the heart of the capital in a bid to bring back many residents of the city who have been scared off by the rise of drug-related crime and prostitution on the streets of Athens.

The first step in this process will be the demolition of a building next to the National Theater that the City of Athens recently purchased from the Seamen’s Pension Fund (NAT) and the creation of a square in its place. The new public space will cover 1,300 square meters and will be at the junction of Menandrou, Veranzerou and Xouthou streets.

“The demolition of the building and the removal of the rubble is a difficult project, which will take about 40 days to complete,” town planner Tasia Lagoudaki, who is advising the municipality on the scheme, told Kathimerini. “It is likely that we will have to use dynamite to demolish the building’s interior.”

According to the time frame that has been drawn up by authorities, the project will then lead to Xouthou Street being pedestrianized by winter next year. At this point, grass and trees will be planted in the new square, so that it will open to the public by spring. Lagoudaki ruled out the possibility that an underground parking garage would be built below the square.

An architectural competition to come up with ideas for revamping nearby Theatrou Square is due to end on September 30, so the process of improving this public space can also begin.

Authorities are considering locating the headquarters of the soon-to-be-created Attica Regional Authority on the square as a way of ensuring that it is not abandoned and taken over once again by petty criminals. Officials also intend to improve the lighting in the area after the success of such a scheme in nearby Gazi.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100002_20/08/2010_119158

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systema magicum said:

HELLENIC COSMOS

γενική άποψη του συμπλέγματος όπως θα είναι στην τελική του μορφή

The three major complexes of the CPHC are:
A) the Exhibition and Research Centre
B) the Art & Education Centre for Children
C) the Museum of the Hellenic World

The principal intention of the FHW is to create a complex of cultural and educational orientation. That is a complex which would not simply accommodate some standard cultural activities, but also invent new kinds of programmes through spatial means that could also have a direct urban impact. In that context Anamorphosis-Architects introduces design more as a medium for educational and communicational purposes and less as a simple sheltering of a given functional programme. Furthermore the design proposal is very much based on the obliteration of the boundaries between landscape and buildings and also between architectural and urban scales.

The general design concept is based on an instrumental and contemporary understanding of history and myth as a recurring morphic logic, active and inspirational, in everyday life, and so, capable of generating new spatial and urban contextualization - a concept opposed to any sterile idealizations and symbolic commemorations. Furthermore, the way in which Greek history and mythology relate organically with certain landscape features and gestures has become the major principle of our design, from master plan to detail, and then elaborated into a general morphic paradigm of instrumental and educational character.

Nikos Georgiadis elaborates on the concept of the extended architectural site, in a spatial/psychoanalytic context, in 'Tracing Architecture', AD/Architectural Design, Vol 68, 3-4/1998, guest edited by Nikos Georgiadis, see Editorial pp.7-10.


The CPHC will be realised in three phases: The first phase includes the Exhibition and Research Centre and the Art and Education Centre for Children, and the second includes the Museum of The Hellenic World. The first phase started in Spring 2007.

The Foundation of the Hellenic World: http://www.fhw.gr/

http://www.anamorphosis-architects.com/projects/IME_01HCCP/CPHC.html

Το κέντρο τεχνών και εκπαίδευσης των παιδιών (complex B)

Keeping with the general morphic, historic and mythic, paradigm, the design of this complex focuses specifically on the morphic parameter of creativity and play. Design here aims to play an explicit educational role, highlight and transmit the dialectic of forms and creative imagination over content and meaning. This complex consists of three major homeomorphic spaces in a synthesis which is based on their common morphic features. These are the “hut”, the “ship”, and the “flying paper-airplane” (alluding to three simple, paper-folding, constructivist gestures) which in turn elaborate the relationship between “inside” and “outside” in three characteristic ways referring respectively to the earth, the water, and the air, and their concomitant structures. These spaces are designed to host educational and artistic activities for kids, involving workshops, exhibitions, play and so on. The complex also includes library, eating and resting areas, small aquarium, and storage, while its roof is multiply accessible and used for play and educational programmes. It also includes an archaeological finding from the Byzantine period, which was discovered in the area during construction, and eventually preserved on site. The connection of the complex with its adjacent ones occurs through designed journeys (long walks and water-journeys by boat) which are meant to emphasize the process of expedition and exploration.
http://www.anamorphosis-architects.com/projects/IME_03AEC/AEC.html

To Ερευνητικο και Εκθεσιακό Κέντρο (complex A)

The Exhibition and Research Centre of the CPHC, (Complex A) includes two subcomplexes:
1. The Research Centre, the Open-air Theatre and the Small Village.

This complex elaborates on the hybridic spatial structure of the Greek ancient theatre which arises as a natural growth and evolution of the inclined landscape of the hill, in contradistinction to the finite form of a freestanding building. It is a composition of an open-air theatre with a building block whose volume alludes to the inclined but also steep form of Greek hills, while its structure alludes to the metallic frame of a ship prow. At its top, the complex is completed with a small village accommodating workshops and exhibitions, whose form alludes to the shape of proto-urban Greek settlements. The complex includes offices, virtual-reality laboratories, library, shops, restaurant and cafe. Its inclined top is landscaped and planted and includes a number of earth and water installations of variable character. It includes the main entrance to the park as well as the start and end of the Route of Mythology, a journey via land and water, and so becomes a nodal point for the circulation inside the CPHC and a natural threshold towards the outside urban fabric.

2.The Exhibition & Media Centre, the Route of Mythology and the Cave of Mythology.
This complex is the natural continuation of complex “1”, and of the concave shape of the open-air theatre. It is entirely covered with earth, and its external form appears as a smooth, landscaped and planted hill which becomes the major green area of the CPHC. It includes the large Cave of Mythology and the main part of the Route of Mythology, two major landscape/waterscape schemes which include a number of installations and host events based on ancient Greek myths. It also includes a gorge, small caves, and oval shape passages alluding to the Greek beach-line and rocky coast, various open-air features like exhibition, play and sitting areas, as well as an open-air cinema at the top. Its interior contains large exhibition galleries for temporary exhibitions of artistic and commercial character, auditorium, a media-school with lecture rooms, bookshop, self-service restaurant and cafe. The galleries of complex ‘”2” form one expanded double leveled wing which penetrates into the body of complex “1”. They can operate as a whole or in subdivisions, depending on the exhibitions’ requirements.

http://www.anamorphosis-architects.com/projects/IME_02RCAC/RCAC.html

πηγή:
http://www.anamorphosis-architects.com/index.html

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China 'set to invest billions in debt-stricken Greece'
China could sign a billion-euro investment deal with Greece on Tuesday, as the European nation battles to reduce its huge deficit.

Published: 10:26AM BST 15 Jun 2010
7 Comments

Containers await transport at the port of Piraeus. Photo: EPA
Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang visits the debt-laden country on Tuesday and will reportedly commit to investment in maritime affairs, telecoms and the renovation of a landmark tower building in Athens' port of Piraeus, the Financial Times said, citing an unnamed Greek government official.
Other deals including shipbuilding agreements worth €500m will also be signed, the report added.

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Athens is seeking to attract investment from countries with massive sovereign wealth funds – such as China – in an effort to stimulate economic growth.
Government incentives and bargain-basement prices have helped catch the eye of Chinese investors, even as others run the other way.
The strategic location of Greece's abundant port facilities make it a gateway for China into the Balkans and Europe.
Cosco, the Chinese shipping giant, last year signed a 35-year lease with Greece to expand the two main container terminals at the main Greek port of Piraeus for a guaranteed premium of €3.4bn.
It assumed full control of the major container dock last week.
"We have a saying in China, 'construct the eagle's nest and the eagle himself will come'," Wei Jiafu, Cosco chief executive, said in a Greek television interview last week. "We have constructed such a nest in [Greece] to attact such Chinese eagles. This is our contribution to you."

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