A series of demolitions of the interior brick walls of an abandoned block in the city center. The demolitions unify the block at the level of a chosen floor. The example we use here is a block defined by the streets Dragatsaniou, Stadiou, Aristidou and Evripidou in Central Athens. The different buildings of the block were not build at the same period and there is no general plan predefining the yards of the block. The unified interior at the level of an upper floor organizes a possible redistribution for the new space. An addition of light metallic stairs is necessary in order that the space functions as a new entity. Architecture happens here as an addition of simple furniture that inhabit the space. Some generic scenography performed by table, beds and their hybrids organize an idiosyncratic furniture occupation of the open space. The project proposes a system of elementary dwelling settings but also installs the rationale of beds in a normal office landscape. The space is defined as a system of protocols; the sleeping area can become an idiosyncratic hotel, a multiple kitchen, a school of dialogue rooms (a transformed university structure) or a “beamer hall”. A hybrid space in between a hotel and an office, the Sleeping Area is programmatically defined by small scale scripts performing in relation to a system of furniture-like objects.

Aristide Antonas. Greek architect and writer, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Nanterre, University of Paris X. Antonas has been a visiting lecturer in Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), Instituto Universitario de Architetura de Venezia (IUAV), Architectural Association (AA), University of Cyprus Program of Architecture, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Technische Universität München, Politecnico di Milano, among others. The Antonas office functions as an architectural research studio and was nominated for a Mies Van der Rohe Award in 2009 and for the International Iakov Chernikhov Prize in 2010.

He was co-curator of the Greek Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2004 (Paradigmata) and he is a contributor for the Tranzit Display’s Monument to Transformation (Prague and Bratislava, curated by Vit Havránek and Zbyněk Baladrán). His essays are mostly published in the Internet, his literature books are printed in Greek (Agra Editions) and one short story in English (jrp Ringier, Zurich). Two of his theatre scripts were performed in French and one in Greek. His work is about the Protocols for Athens will be publisehd in the book Archipelago of Protocols, dpr-barcelona (2015).

collaborators

Aristide Antonas, Katerina Koutsogianni, Chara Stergiou, Yannikos Vassiloulis

country

Greece

year

2014