D. Daskalopoulos art center is not just a building dedicated to art and education. Its a project that invites us to re-read and reformulate modern society correlations. Architecture through our proposal acquires a connecting role between dipoles of nature-education, education-art, nature-art. Through the re-reading of those correlations emerges the main design composition which respects the current urban context and delivers new spatial qualities.
Local
Greece
{Empty}
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-02-01
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Panagiotis Last name: Parthenios Gender: Male Nationality: Greece If relevant, please select your other nationality: Greece Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Greece Town: Athens Postal code: 15452 Country: Greece Direct Tel:+30 694 784 3368 E-mail:parthenios@gmail.com Website:https://artsbuilding.gr/
The project is about an art center in Athens, Greece that invites us to re-read and reformulate modern society correlations. Architecture through our proposal acquires a connecting role between dipoles of nature-education, education-art, nature-art. Through the re-reading of those correlations emerges the main design composition which respects the current urban context and delivers new spatial qualities. Experiential learning, immediate contact with nature and art inclusion form the epicentre of this project.
The Athens College school context becomes the common ground where collective memory of students, family members, and visitors is developed through the interactive relationship between building spaces and applied educational practices performed through outdoor activities within the natural environment. Contending the fact that collective memory contributes to the development of students’ personalities from the social and learning point of view, then through art, we believe there is also emotional development - creativity and fantasy become essential tools for a more experiential approach to knowledge.
The intention is to conjugate art and nature through architectural experience. Integration of students in space through art and integration of building in the landscape through an organic form both aims to establish new experiential techniques reproducing the same intensity and harmony humans integrate/relate with a piece of art.
If education forms a matrix of human abilities in which every one of them creates specific intelligence, then we believe that spatial sensory experience adds knowledge contributing to the expansion of that intelligence. Through art, students do not only acquire the ability to think and learn but to act, research, and explore ways to evolve themselves just the same way an artist evolving exploring variable artwork techniques.
art
education
natural landscape
integration
connectivity
Within the framework of the sustainable design, a number of sustainability strategies were integrated to the proposed building. These are derived from the AIA evaluation points (https://www.aia.org/re- sources/6391171-2021-cote-top-ten-awards), combined with the LEED rating system, whereas, as far as health and well-being are concerned, the WELL certification (REF) was used, and involve:
Integration to the natural and built environment (Site and Plot Sustainability): As was mentioned above, the building is integrated to the natural relief, which it significantly restores. An important part of the roofs is extensive green roofs. At the same time, the existing trees are preserved to the largest possible extent, and complemented with new trees and shrubs that are compatible with both the existing vegetation and Mediterranean and endemic species.
An important part of the building’s roofs are extensive green roofs, while at the surfaces of the open spaces, there is predominant use of water-permeable materials, such as stabilised earth for the pedestrian routes, and/or materials (e.g. slabs or blocks) placed without mortar on a water-permeable substrate (gravel, sand or earth). Finally, for the retaining walls of the open air spaces (open-air amphitheatre and pockets), gabions are used. All these strategies increase the water permeability of the ground in order to enrich the underground reservoirs and to deal with flooding. At the building basement, rainwater collection reservoirs are placed. The main aim is to exploit rainwater to cover as much of the building’s secondary needs (flushing, irrigation, etc.), and in this way conserve clean, potable water. To this end, the choice of Mediterranean and endemic vegetation, with low
irrigation needs is also important.
The natural landscape provided us with the answer; the unique enchanting landscape is comprised of two ingredients: its intertwining footpaths expanding through a diverse flora enriched with cypress, eucalyptus, oak, pine and olive trees, and the variable student activities taking place within, when students run in between classes, breaks, sports, studying and playing.”We pulled over that green rag”, reestablishing the natural topography which was wounded harshly by the artificial submersion of the land at the southwest corner of the site, integrating all educational spaces internally by establishing free interlocking movement that follows existing surrounding paths which all meet at an internal courtyard. We position carefully a stoic white volume which appears to hover gently above the green rag and it’s ready to receive in a fluid and adjustable way the exhibition space, the gallery.
The D. Daskalopoulos Arts Building forms a unique livable and creative environment, an interactive lab of expression that the ensemble of spaces together with its virtual clone transform it into a beacon of knowledge emitting to all. Against the erroneous view that presents art as an elitist product, the new Arts Building is designed to forge the best out of every student both at individual and collaborative form, their families, their teachers, the artistic community and visitors allowing an inclusive and interdisciplinary access to artistic education.
Art and education as interactive fields can create a collective environment where students learning possibilities expand limitlessly. Art is not placed specific - its an open field where everyone is wel- come to experiment and explore their inner self.
Based on that thinking, paths are designed for children to wander and acquire their own learning experiences in spaces with abundant colours, natural scents as well as full of surprises ready to be explored. Future vision becomes the epicentre of this experience. The gallery space welcomes art- works from artists that have long-established interactive communication between the audience and their artwork. The clear geometric form of the gallery is there to remind us all of the unnegotiable power of the vision: the uplifting transition between education and art.
Considering education as a tool to express and liberate the children’s abilities, we aim to create a school with distinctive personality. We design spatial entities were children will be able to develop their perception through knowledge, experiences and stimuli.
Education and art, two distinctive entities share one common ground, bringing students closer to the artistic sphere. School’s role is to provide stimuli to children that encourage inner explorations, promote personal expression breaking any boundaries stopping them to become the new artists of the future.
The intersection point between education and art becomes the ladder calling students to climb and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Have they become artists? they observe, they learn and then again make a step back re-exploring their true self.
We envision a space that is harmonically integrated with the natural environment but at the same time establishes its presence as a piece of art. Space marries soft smooth curves of nature with the hard lines of the artist expanding students’ fantasy and giving space to understand their own theory around art .
The design team engaged different stakeholders at multiple scales. At the local level, the design integrated the needs and living patterns of students, school staff and the Athens College community. At the European level, a great effort was made towards creating an open, extroverted, welcoming arts building within the closed and secure educational environment of the Campus. As such, the building dedicated to art was envisioned as a cultural hub able to promote both European Art, and the vision of D. Daskalopoulos.
The architectural composition double challenge is: firstly to achieve integration between the building and the natural landscape by blending it with the neighbouring grove to the east and north of the site as well as eliminating the hard border between the building and the basketball courts to the west. Secondly, to create a constant communication between education and art where the exhibition space will directly intervene with the educational process and techniques but at the same time to perform as an independent art space.
Connectivity and constant circulation flow is achieved between the grove and the sport facilities through the formation of new paths as a natural extension of the existing. The newly integrated paths are also extended within the site forming an atrium space that engage organically all education spaces at ground level as well as the exhibition spaces at the upper levels.
The design outcome is the harmonious coexistence between the organically formed lower levels where the educational facilities are taking place and the strict geometric form of the upper level where the exhibition space is located. This contrasting form re- lationship aims to present art as an entity hovering above education highlighting the necessity of multiple correlation synergies between them.
D. Daskalopoulos art center is not just a building dedicated to art and education. Its a project that invites us to re-read and reformulate modern society correlations. Architecture through our pro- posal acquires a connecting role between dipoles of nature-education, education-art, nature-art. Through the re-reading of those correlations emerges the main design composition which respects the current urban context and delivers new spatial qualities. Experiential learning, immediate con- tact with nature and art inclusion form the epicentre of this project.
The Athens College school context becomes the common ground where collective memory of students, family members, and visitors is developed through the interactive relationship between building spaces and applied educational practices performed through outdoor activities within the natural environment. Contending the fact that collective memory contributes to the development of students’ personalities from the social and learning point of view, then through art, we believe there is also emotional development - creativity and fantasy become essential tools for a more experien- tial approach to knowledge.
The intention is to conjugate art and nature through architectural experience. Integration of stu- dents in space through art and integration of building in the landscape through an organic form both aims to establish new experiential techniques reproducing the same intensity and harmony humans integrate/relate with a piece of art.
If education forms a matrix of human abilities in which every one of them creates specific intelli- gence, then we believe that spatial sensory experience adds knowledge contributing to the expan- sion of that intelligence. Through art, students do not only acquire the ability to think and learn but to act, research, and explore ways to evolve themselves just the same way an artist evolving explor- ing variable artwork techniques.
Art and education as interactive fields can create a collective environment where students learning possibilities expand limitlessly. Art is not placed specific - its an open field where everyone is wel- come to experiment and explore their inner self.
Based on that thinking, paths are designed for children to wander and acquire their own learning experiences in spaces with abundant colours, natural scents as well as full of surprises ready to be explored. Future vision becomes the epicentre of this experience. The gallery space welcomes art- works from artists that have long-established interactive communication between the audience and their artwork. The clear geometric form of the gallery is there to remind us all of the unnegotiable power of the vision: the uplifting transition between education and art.
Considering education as a tool to express and liberate the children’s abilities, we aim to create a school with distinctive personality. We design spatial entities were children will be able to develop their perception through knowledge, experiences and stimuli.
Education and art, two distinctive entities share one common ground, bringing students closer to the artistic sphere. School’s role is to provide stimuli to children that encourage inner explorations, promote personal expression breaking any boundaries stopping them to become the new artists of the future.
The neighbouring area of the site has intense planting consisting of tall pine and cy- press trees complimented by bushes and shrubs that create an impressive mediterra- nean landscape.
The existing uses (basketball courts, parking spaces) have wounded the natural landscape creating a scar that consists of hard edges and lines as well as a height level difference that separates the site from the neighboring campus. The architectural design proposal does not follow traditional lines but in contrast follows organic forms that aim to integrate the building with the natural landscape, eliminate the current void by follow- ing and extending the existing natural topography lines and curves.
The landscape design aims to integrate the building with its surroundings in harmony as well as connecting indoor spaces with existing and new green areas. The diversity of existing tall trees act as a reference that secures and establish clear circulation patterns and viewpoints. The natural level of the grove at the northwest border of the building is gradually lowered, forming a natural ramp connecting it with the central level of the main atrium of the school. All existing trees are maintained and protected by retaining walls that form new seating and viewing points.
In contrast the grove at the southwest border maintains its original level and is extended to form an artificial hill that acts as the roof of the main volume of the building. That new green carpet reshapes the landscape and reveals the new building forms. The proposal consists of an extensive variety of new trees and plants reinforcing the existing flora of the natural landscape.
Considering the digital strategy as a necessary component for the creation of a contemporary building dedicated to arts, it is considered important to include connectivity infrastructure and digital equipment in the building and the surrounding area. Specifically, it is proposed to develop an ecosystem for digital education and high-performance projections that could be implemented in four distinct locations throughout the project:
inside the classes and the inner amphitheater In the three building facades in the area of the neighboring amphitheater and pockets, In the area of maintaining and supporting trees. The introduction of smart technologies in the classes refers to a comple- mentary strategic vision for the building with the aim of high quality, without exclusions and accessible education, art, etc. Based on this, three kinds of technologies are proposed for the areas inside the classes: The first type of technology integration concerns the insertion of smart screens along the walls inside the classes, that augment understanding and translate interactions in motion, form and symbols. The second type of technology concerns the introduction of an interac- tive digital board, which with the help of personalized applications allows students to present their work, to be supported through automatic speech recognition systems, etc. The third type of technology that we propose here is the insertion of digital readers (E-readers), electronic devices that can hold hundreds of books in digital format offered in the classroom. This technology is considered important to be present in all rooms and can be placed on the main desks or on special shelves.
The intersection point between education and art becomes the ladder calling students to climb and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Have they become artists? they observe, they learn and then again make a step back re-exploring their true self.
We envision a space that is harmonically integrated with the natural environment but at the same time establishes its presence as a piece of art. Space marries soft smooth curves of nature with the hard lines of the artist expanding students’ fantasy and giving space to un derstand their own theory around art . Previously disconnected elements are now under one roof, forming one idea complementing each other in a harmonious way. A polymorphic spatial complex which constantly evolves identity ready to face and answer universal questions of its surroundings.
