Revitalization through Synergy

We believe a City is and needs to continue to be a patchwork of different atmospheres. Integrating the notion of synergy with that of public space, we suppose that public space can seam together these differences of the ''patchwork-city'', acting as an activator in situ, meaning a space of increased interaction among citizens and among people-space. More specifically, an activator unites residents around common goals and is a space for action and appropriation for them. So, as designers, we set out specific design strategies for a synergetic public space. First strategy is the provision of infrastructure to the user (elementary, such as electricity plugs, wi-fi connection, water supply etc) or the opportunity to rearrange the urban furniture (like plug-in stools). Second is the insertion of programs of collective management (eg. urban farming areas, neighborhood parks). Third, finally, is manipulating the topography so as to provide stimuli to the user or amplifying his  relationship to landscape elements. Important for the concept of the synergetic public space as an activator is the fact that it is conceived as dynamic and adaptable to changes, meaning that the nature of such a public space can evolve over the course of time, according to changes in the physical characteristics of place, in the geometric characteristics, or the programmatic, and of course, through changes in trends formed by the citizens' desires or other unpredictable events. Last we find highly important that all synergetic public spaces interconnect so as to accomplish greater effects of synergy, through the provision of continuous movement through them. 

Having this conception of a synergetic public space, we then apply it to a specific context -  a site on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, characterized by urban sprawl and big-box development of commercial use, in the last decades. What is interesting with the area is its current state, which resembles, to our mind, a patchwork of very different -perhaps contrasting- land uses and alternatively of hard and soft surfaces, as despite the big commercial complexes all surrounded by extensive surfaces for car parking, there are still equally big surfaces of underused, these days, farmland. At the same time, the area presents an emerging dynamic to become an important recreation hub for the city, as it has currently a neglected coastline, where the shipyards could be removed so as to rehabilitate and remediate the waterfront, a military school with extensive planting, which can be removed and reused as an urban park and other important recreation places (athletic venues, a fun park). Additionally the area is surrounded by a larger area dedicated to innovation (American agricultural school, the Innovation Band of Thessaloniki, and the farmstead of Aristotle University). Lastly, a node of coastline transportation could be created connecting the area with the rest of the city, as well as a marine port, which would attract tourists.

Nonetheless, regarding future housing, we believe that the area currently lacks a basic infrastructure of public spaces, and except for the areas of commercial activity, all the rest is abandoned and functions only as an intermediate, transitive place. Setting goals and strategies for the future of the area, and given the current state of social and economic crisis in Greece, our proposal tries to take advantage of these neglected dynamics of the area, developing a strategic plan that evolves in 2 phases. This aims at improving the quality of the area as residential environment and attracting investments that will create urbanized cores.

In the 1st phase of our plan (0-5 years), we first, take into advantage the important building stock of the area (military school / shipyards / bankrupt Filkeram factory), creating recreation hubs and reusing the factory as a multi-use housing complex. Then, in the unused areas of farmland around the factory and between it and the recreation hubs, we implement a pilot program, in collaboration with the municipality, which rents these areas for a time period of 5 years (with the possibility of extension of the program, if successful), in order to transform the area into a multi-use matrix of areas of urban agriculture (collaboration with the university to give an educational character), athletic spaces, small-scale recreational spaces and small-scale commercial ones, educational spaces, touristic attractions - all interconnected through a big network of woonerf and pedestrian paths and trails. Finally, in relation to the housing complex of Filkeram we propose also the creation of another residential area, which will bring more people and will increase the flow of people in the area of the pilot project. For the first phase of the plan, in the rest of the area, our intervention is only institutional, setting new building rules and restrictions, that discourage big-box development (forbidding unification of plots) and setting environmental rules so that the phenomenon of large areas covered with hard pavement will not continue to occur.

In the 2nd phase of our plan (5-15 years), having revitalized a big part of the area, through the first strategic interventions, we then propose next possible areas for housing, connected with those of the 1st phase through the extension of the network of public spaces.   

Our strategies don't approach the area from a romantic viewpoint of landscape and urban agriculture, instead we try to preserve its identity as a patchwork, attracting various groups of people through this complex matrix of activities that constitute the pilot program. Heart of it is of course, our concept for the activator, meaning that through synergetic public spaces we will revitalize the area and increase exponentially its value as a residential environment. Specifically, the activator takes various forms in its implementation to the area. First, we propose 3 types of small-scale structures (kiosks) which will house a wide variety of programs (educational, shops, cafes, restaurants, info points, observation towers, seed storage spaces, garden rooms, shelters, public toilets, collective kitchens, storage for urban farmers, temporary exhibition spaces, open-air pavilions, children workshops, playgrounds, libraries, performance stages, seminar rooms, greenhouses). All kiosks have prefabricated metal structural frames, where openings are created according to programmatic needs and, regarding the skin, a palette of different materials can be used according to the desires of the investor of each kiosk. Kiosks are arranged in clusters so that together they create density of activities and poles of attraction. Finally, at the Filkeram factory a new public square is created, where a big structure of roofed and semi-open canopies, assumes the role of the activator, sheltering temporary structures (like a flee market etc) .