TYPE: Urban Design [International Architectural Competition] | LOCATION: Hellinikon [Former International Airport], Athens, Greece | ARCHITECTS: Aurelio Galfetti (50%), META Architecture, Richard Rubin, Panos Leventis (50%)
The eastern runway of the former Athens airport provides the spine of the scheme with its metamorphosis into a large pedestrian boulevard. Secondary pathways and programmatic elements are wedged onto this boulevard and extend to reach the surrounding fabric. The 3,5 km axis is twinned by an open/green area to the east that reinforces the scheme’s central artery. This 150m-wide void acts as a sign of regional significance, linking disparate elements of the Athens basin both virtually, by providing a conceptual line of reference, as well as chronologically, by retaining the memory of the airport. A dense forest of maritime pines becomes the park’s main body and the lung of southern Athens. Pine clusters unfold through the eastern area of the park and its western edge towards the seafront, enveloping the void of the boulevard.
TYPE: Science Classrooms, Labs and Concert Hall for a Private High School [National Architectural Competition] | LOCATION: English School Campus, Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus | ARCHITECTS: Constantinos Kypris (50%), Panos Leventis (50%)
The ‘urbanization’ of both the loosely defined immediate site and the whole campus guided the design, resulting in a treatment of the composition as a ‘City of Education’, an urban landscape with pedestrian thoroughfares, parks, successive buildings and open areas, with smaller and larger public and gathering spaces surrounded by extensive green. This concept allows for an architectural consistency during the design of proposed buildings as well as the renovation of existing ones, and for a structure of connectivity between all public-open areas, parking, green areas, and zones of future campus extension. This manner of dealing with the site organizes the composition and gives to the area the desirable architectonic and urban character by offering a unified, creative and productive environment for working and learning.
TYPE: City Hall and Municipal Library [National Architectural Competition] | LOCATION: Lemesos Avenue, Latsia, Nicosia, Cyprus | Architects: Constantinos Kypris (50%), Panos Leventis (50%)
Three distinct volumes define the composition: the entry hall with the library, the concert hall, and the municipality offices. The space in front of the buildings is designed as a regional public plaza with capacity for outdoor concerts and other cultural events. The three programmatic elements are placed amphitheatrically on the sloping site, with the office volume on higher ground, the entry hall and library in the middle, and the concert hall on the lower, north side. The entry hall is open from both the west (façade) and east ends, giving the users the capacity to access the building from both the front public space and the parking space in the back. Curves and a looser geometry characterize the concert hall, hinting at its use as a space of culture and creativity, while the municipality offices retain an austerity in their lines and volume.
TYPE: Urban Design [International Architectural Competition by Invitation] | LOCATION: Thessaloniki, Greece | ARCHITECTS: Eleni Gigantes, Panos Koulermos, Elia Zengelis; Collaborating Architect: Panos Leventis
The proposal’s aim is to provide identity to an otherwise unmemorable coastline with the introduction of typological and organizational principles, which will render the urban experience and the sea-bound presence of Thessaloniki significant and memorable. The proposal consists of the introduction of four hybrid structures at nodal points along the city’s eastern coastline, in order to provide a variety of presently absent uses, and to make the urban scale more approachable. These four ‘urban containers’, built with sustainable principles in mind, include transport interchanges, which, complemented by parking structures on the edge of the urban fabric, will free the proposed linear park from disruptions. The resulting ‘urban rooms’ around the four structures create the desired relation between solid and void at the city scale.