http://issuu.com/demetrisvenizelos/docs/portfolio

hybridPlastic arts Athens 2010

hybrid baby of a dual nature:a struggle between mineral and vegetative. This little sculpture of approximately 30cmx30cmx30cm attempts to bring together in-congruent natures, needs and compulsions to a meaningful whole.

Center for Contemporary ArtStudio Project - NTUAPiraeus - Greece

The project is located at the NE part of Mikrolimano in Piraeus- Athens, a historic pen-insula and marina. Apart from proposing a cen-ter for contemporary art, the project is seen as an integrated building and Landscape proposal that aims to:

_ restore continuity of the fabric that was dis-rupted by an artificial retaining wall that created a height difference of 21.5m, making impossible any connection of the north-eastern part of the peninsula with the marina, _ restore the severed connection with water that has been lost due to informal developments along the marina’s coast,_ give a purpose to a rather large parcel of land that was reclaimed by the sea, remaining un-derused for years despite its prominent location. The agenda of the project is not limited to the program or its architectural expression, but extends to explore the possibilities of shaping the urban through the architectural project.

section

Village The Countryside as a CityDimitris Venizelos and PG Smit

AECOM / HARVARD GSD

Common Framework: Rethinking the Developmental City in China, Part 3 - Chris Lee, Simon Whittle

published in:http://issuu.com/gsdharvard/docs/commonframe-works3/1

SUMMARY

The Chinese countryside is rapidly changing due to rampant industrialization and urban migra-tion. The shift from agriculture to migrant work-ing has eroded living conditions and strained family structure in rural villages.

The central government has sought to alleviate this situation by consolidating the traditional villages into new agricultural towns (through a procss of demolition of adjacent villages and their replacement with a small town).

However, these new settlements offer little in terms of the real economic opportunity that is crucial to the long term sustainability of the countryside. The raw ingredients to physical, mental and social well-being, embedded in the small scale of the existing villages and the close relation to nature and tradition are eradicated. Yet, these qualities will be invaluable in China’s imminent shift toward greater health and cultur-al awareness. The project questions the wholesale demolition and relocation of the villages, proposing instead to maintain their dispersed nature by augment-ing the existing communities, through a pro-cess of selective erasure and strategic insertion. Bands of new infrastructure, housing, amenities and production spaces become the base for diver-sified economic activity through hybrid program-ming, value added commodities and services.

The project offers an alternative vision for the countryside that preserves and utilizes its cultur-al and spiritual significance, whilst offering op-portunity for an economically sustainable future.

typical street in Taiquian

new town

The chinese countryside, an archipelago of villages _ The site is located in future planned “Agricultural Innovation Area”

Selective Erasure and Strategic insertionthe process

This project questions the wholesale demolition and relocation of the villages propos-ing instead to maintain their dispersed nature by augmenting the existing communities through a process of selective erasure and strategic inser-tion. Rural villages weave together agricul-tural tradition and social life in common spaces. This condition manifests spatially through the employment of every available surface, from bed-rooms and courtyards to pavements and streets, as part of agricultural production and process-ing. These activities penetrate all strata of priva-cy, from residential interior to public street. The streets are spaces of social activity and constitute the primary form of public space in the village

Large parts of the village are abandoned and underutilized and need to be cleared or reno-vated, repurposed and restructured. The existing fabric is comprised of an orthogonal grid that de-lineates strips of housing. The blocks are elongat-ed to such an extend that they read as bands of fabric. Based on this ribbon structure, the project proposes a selective erasure of buildings along a single street to free land for development. The strips of liberated land are restructured through the insertion of new program; on the edges of the bands are buildings with a reduced footprint, and to the center are strips of agricultural land.

The plan consists of two primary ele-ments: the bands forming horizontal strips and staggered perforations of the preserved fabric that create a secondary circulation system. The bands layer three components: new rental hous-ing; productive and recreational landscapes (fields, community gardens, playgrounds, gather-ing spaces, and large surfaces for drying and pro-cessing); and new small-scale artisanal produc-tion and exhibition spaces. The bands not only create much-needed production and social spaces for the villages but also offer a platform for visi-

tors to engage with the production processes first hand.

New infrastructure, housing, ame-nities, and production spaces become the foundation for diversified economic activity centered around ecotourism: marketing the experience of the villages, advancing agricul-tural production, and promoting value-added products. An overlay of light manufacturing works in tandem with organic show gardens for passive recreation. The gardens, which can be rented by visitors, are used to grow fresh organic food, herbs, flowers, and seeds.

The bands suggest an alternative reading of the village. Horizontally the bands draw landscape in and frame the villages through the lens of landscape. Vertically, the village is perceived as an alternating sequence of old and new, with the new buildings serv-ing as filters for this transition. In order to increase permeability of the fabric, as well as access to the bands, the existing village blocks are perforated by passages that use vacant or underutilized lots. These passages create a secondary circulation system along which are located points of interest such as recreational spaces.

Within the bands, the new housing units are arranged in a sawtooth structure. Pockets of open space on alternate sides are shaped by the building’s geometry, forming an elongated version of the traditional courtyard house. These are either private courtyards facing the agricultural land or small public open spaces facing the street, serving as ex-tensions to it. Rich and diversified spaces and experiences flow into each other throughout.

This proposal aspires to provide an alternative vision for the countryside that preserves the village as cultural and spiritual heart and projects into China’s future a past not forgotten

strategy:

Selective Erasure and Strategic insertion

vacant lots and damaged fabric

introduction of new program, amenities and increase of porosity in the N-S

direction

Stripping of bands and infill process: re-location of the existing in the voids of the

preserved fabric

Taiqian: existing and proposed

The bands are the village’s shopfront; a new economic model based on ecotourism aims to reverse the depopuation of the villages and to invite city-dwellers to redescover the quality of life that the countryside offers.

1_The Band

Organized around courtyards that draw the agricultural band into the dwelling space, the units provide the experience of living in nature. The bound-aries of the residence are thin transparent screens that offer the feeling of an extreme proximity to land-scape from the interior. The saw-tooth structure creates a se-quence of spaces from the interior of the residence to the street, that respond to a gradient of privacy. on the scale of the settlement, housing units are seen as filters, both because they constitute the limits be-tween preserved fabric and agricultural land as well as because they define the po-rosity of the bands by regu-lating circulation patterns, sequence of public space and a broader structure of the fabric at large.

level 2

level 1

The bands become common space, where work and social encounter converge to the rituals of agri-culture. Agriculture recuperates its cultural role offering a new understanding of the common.

housing workshops

Limit of the band _ New and preserved fabric New housing and exisitng fabric of courtyard houses. The street remains a vibrant public space

2 _ Staggered perforations of preserved fabric

Teahouse

Orchards

Perforations as part of the proposed housing typology

In order to increase permeability of the fabric and access to the bands, the existing village blocks are perforated though a alternating sequence of passag-es using vacant or under-utilised lots. These spaces create a secondary movement system along which points of interest, such as recreational spaces and amenities, are articulated

Bajio-MexicoHousing as Urban Strategy: Region-al densificationDimitris Venizelos and Ellen Nicholson

INFONAVIT/HARVARD GSD Retrofitting the [post] Industrial Metropolis: Housing and Economic Growth in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area and the Bajio RegionDiane Davis - Jose Castillo

Celaya is located in the Bajio Region, a steadily growing manufacturing cluster in central Mex-ico. The Bajio Region is a strategically located “economic engine”; thus, it is important for the economic health of the region and the country at large that each “piece” (or city) within the region runs smoothly, both separately and in tandem. Regional realization is well embedded in terms of economy; the area accounts for 50% of automo-tive production in Mexico, it is a leading region in the aerospace industry and it is growing as a tourist destination. The cities of the Bajio Region are located in a very close proximity to each oth-er and share the same urban structure; devel-oped along the freight train lines of FerroMex and Kansas City, each one hosts a considerably sized manufacturing plant on the fringe of the ur-ban area. Celaya is an example of this urban type, hosting the intersection of the two freight lines located in the heart of its urban area, and hav-ing recently acquired a new Honda Factory in the southern part of the city.

Despite the restructuring of live-work patterns and services provision to a regional level, the production of housing for the Mexican workers, encouraged by INFONAVIT’s financing practices, has remained an operation of a local, city-wide scope. In Celaya, as in many other Mexican cit-ies, the incredible addition of housing since 2000 has resulted in a unsustainable sprawling devel-opment pattern; while the population of cities has grown by about 2 times since 2000, the urban fabric has grown about 6 times. More so, when it comes to affordable housing, suburban or even ex-urban developments have been the rule, de-spite the new national housing policy that aims to development of central urban areas; the high real estate value of parcels close to city-center and their small size (compared to out-of-center parcels) make the provision of affordable housing in central urban areas not feasible. In contrast,

exurban areas are financially more attractive as they offer larger land parcels for development and are considerably less expensive in terms of real estate value. As a result, the current de-velopment patterns for affordable housing have only caused more sprawl and have deteriorat-ed the everyday life of workers as they tend to move further away from the center, loosing con-nectivity with places of work or other activities. This centrifugal movement has resulted to a sprawling and degenerated urban fabric, while the reduced overall connectivity as a result of sprawl, not only takes away from the quality of life of the Mexican worker but also impedes the economic success of the region.

One way of addressing sprawl is to focus efforts in densifying the central areas of the city in order to increase proximity of everyday des-tinations in the city. However, taking into con-sideration the regional live-work patterns, the economic realities that encourage centrifugal developments, as well as the need for reduction of commuting time and constrain of the sprawl-ing urban area, we choose to address the need for housing through the lens of accessibility in-stead of proximity, disassociating the solution to problems of sprawl from a desired but unrealis-tic objective of densifying the center. Instead we propose a strategy of regional densification: pro-duction of dense and mixed-use developments within the boundaries of the city and in close proximity to transportation infrastructure. This proposition addresses the problem of sprawl as a problem of connectivity (and not as a problem of proximity) and aspires to accommo-date the emerging regional patterns of life and economy in the Bajio, by encouraging invest-ment in transportation infrastructure, through a regional scope in housing policy. Our proposal is supported by recent discussion regarding a suburban train through this region. In Celaya, there is a unique opportunity regarding the pro-posed train line; the city has already stated in-tentions to divert the industrial train lines out of the city’s fabric, which would open an exist-ing right of way through the city. We suggest that the city capitalize on this opportunity to redirect the train, and incentivize housing in locations with direct proximity to this future train line. These locations are neither in the city center, nor in the ex-urban area, but in the space between· Regardless of their proximity to the center, the proposed locations are relatively big pieces of undeveloped urban land in direct proximity to the aforementioned future transit corridor. The possibility of a light-train system in Celaya allows for the emergence of multiple centralities, associated with the train line and not with the geometric center of the city.

The proposed strategy of location selection in tandem with an active encouragement of the im-plementation of the discussed transit line, aims to constrain sprawl by densifying within the ex-isting urban land and increasing the overall ac-

cessibility and integration of the out-of-center urban fabric, thus reducing commuting time and improving live-work patterns. At the same time, the proposed development works proac-tively in terms of facilitating future closer and more direct collaboration between the many growing cities of the region, by increasing the demand and therefore by exercising pressure towards the realization of the suburban train.

This project focusses in Celaya as a case study of the proposed regional strategy for the re-gion, considering the provision of housing as a singular project for the Bajio. It therefore be-comes a framework for INFONAVIT’s regional mortgage allocation -as opposed to the current city-wide one - a practice that will result to economic benefits for the region and that will improve living standards for people at all eco-nomic levels.

POPULATION IN 2010

AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

FREEWAY

POTENTIAL PASSENGER TRAIN

CARGO TRAIN

AEROSPACE

HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES

TOURISM

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

2015

2020

2025

ESTIMATED INFONAVIT MORT-GAGES - 2015

- 2020

- 2025

Anticipated population growth and demand in affordable housing in Guanajuato - Bajio

live-work patterns and services provision are organized on a regional level

Urban expansion/sprawl in Celaya - Existing (1970-2015) and Projected (2015-2025)[based on expected population growth and current development patterns of expansion]

mismatch of development trends and connectivity

We address the problem of sprawl as a problem of connectivity and not as a problem of proximity to the city center. The notion of centrality itself demands a redefinition, as the traditional model of the bounded city is now obsolete, under pressures of a globalized reality.

We propose time as the correct magnitude of measuring sprawl, not real distance. Therefore, a strategy that aims to mitigate the problems of urban sprawl should focus on increasing connectivity instead of proximity, embracing the benefits of a regional urbanity.

selected locations are neither in the city center, nor in the ex-urban area.· proposed locations are relatively big pieces of unde-veloped urban land in well-integrated and accessible parts of the city, and in direct proximity to the future transit corridor.

The implementation of the suburban train allows for a regional scope in planning and design. A regional - instead of city-wide - housing policy becomes possible, with major eco-nomic and social benefits.

HomoTopies:The Roman and the Boy

Dimitris Venizelos and Alexandro Medina

Topics in Parametric and Generative Geometry and Mod-elingHarvard GSD fALL 2013

This exercise is a formal exploration of the homoto-py (smooth transition) of Steiner’s Roman Surface to the Boy surface. The project speculates on the spatial possibilities of this topological transition and investigates the poetic, plastic expression of mathe-matics.

The pavillion - a scene for a dance performance- takes its form at a moment in the middle of this topological transition. It attempts to bridge the formal back-and forth of the homotopy with the philosophical under-pinnings of the performance that it hosts: “Primal Matter” by Dimitris Papaioannou. “A performance in the dialectic tradition, [...] where everything found its meaning and path through connection to its oth-er, to its opposite and contrary form.”

the transition (homotopy) explained through its generative geometry

the ondulating structure of the pavillion emerges through manipulation of the surface’s generative curves

Palestra _Athens Adolf Loos_J. Baker’s House G. Terragni_ Danteum

The beautyfactory Third Natures: London Pleasure GardensDimitris Venizelos

instructors:Cristina Diaz Moreno and Efren Garcia Grinda

From the classic Athenian Gymnasium to A. Loos’s compositional technique of the “theater box” and to Terragni’s Danteum, the notion of public (both as a range of privacy as well as cre-ation of community) has been constructed on the premise of the view of and interaction between bodies.

“The beauty factory” is an attempt to construct an interiorized public space, employing voyeur-ism as a spatial tool and hedonism as a program, rejecting the spectacular banal that has dominat-ed most of the recent examples of public spaces.

The factory is a hybrid of a gym and a bathhouse. It is comprised of 3 architectural elements: _1. the gym - an amphitheatrical space for physi-cal exercise _2. a collection of water rooms (pools) that float on top of it. The relations of the water volumes in section, the theater and their inbetween space regulate privacy, intimacy and behaviour. Main actor, the naked body - naked in spirit and in flesh, to exist in common activity. _Bodies, water and machines are all contained within a field of columns (3) that creates a veil, filtering the relation of exterion and interior landscape.

2. The water rooms

J. Baker’s House - A. Loos

RaumplanLoos’s Raumplan is a spatial approach that rejects the instrumentality of the plan, the section or the facade as tools for composition, but instead designs architecture as a relation of 3-d spaces.

He writes that his architectural space is a “contiguous continual space” where “storeys merge and spaces relate to each other”. For Loos the interior is an Umwelt. Windows are there only to provide light, establishing no relation-ship with the exterior world as for Loos “a cultivated man does not look out of the window; his window is a ground glass it is there only to let the light pass in, not to let the gaze pass through”. The house is clearly an interior, an introvert architecture that creates a personal and private space, without nevertheless establishing clear distinctions between private and public. Loos is using the device of the theater box to construct these - always introvert- spatial relations of voyeurism, by a continuous re-evaluation of the dynamics between subject and object, voyeur and viewed. Architecture is “a viewing mechanism that produces the subject”. the pool as a theater boxThe construction of the theater box is achieved by the alteration of the expected procession of spaces in terms of their privacy, with the most private spaces being in a visual but not physical connection with the most public and social

1. The Gym

The classic Academy

common physical activity as a community making processIn the classic Academy, the young Athenian was educated by training both his body as well as his words.Wrestling and debating, taking place in the palestra and the gymnasium respectively, were considered as necessary activities for the shaping of the citizen : Wrestling taught men the economy of movements, while argumentation taught the economy of words.

heatDialectic and debate as well as wrestling and other physical activities heated the body. The body itself was understood as the result of heat, men’s body being more heated and thus more shaped than the female. Man and woman is a one-sex body of different degrees. Sex is a matter of degrees.

beauty and nakedness

The gymnasium taught the young boy to be naked among its equals. In the ancient thought, physical as well as spir-itual nakedness was an indication of a civilized man, as it exemplified the virtue of a good citizen:A beautiful and fully exposed body with which he can love the city and the citizens and a beautiful, freely exposed mind with which the young citizen will participate in the democratic processes of the city. Following the culture of the Academia, beauty could not merely be physical but it has to be spiritual as well. Body and mind are one entity

3. The columns

Danteum - G. Terragni

Terragni’s Danteum, a building inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy -as well as Dali’s paintings for the same work- sug-gest a deep esoteric analogy between column and body.

In the danteum the column is an allegory of the body and its condition. The stages of the passage to the after-life and the feelings of the subjects as described in Dante’s classic work are expressed by the presence or absence, distribu-tion, geometry and materiality of columns.

ones. The building - no longer being a theater box as a whole in relation to the “exterior” city- is an interior social space itself with the most domestic and private room as a theater box. pleasureJosephine’s house is not a domestic house for a family, but for a single woman. The element of pleasure becomes a conceptual tool for this house, to fit the personality of its owner. The theater box in Josephine’s house is the pool and the game of voyeurism becomes even more real and literal. The less private space of the house - the living room- is in a direct visual contact with a private “bowl of water” as Loos described the pool. Without a way of physically getting in, the intruder can see Josephine swimming. Privacy in Loos’ architecture is a game of control between the observer and the observee.

voyeurismThe interior windows provide no longer a panoptic view of the theater box (that happens in other houses by Loos, such as the Muller house) but rather a peephole to the spectacle of -naked- swimming. But, not only the spectator is watch-ing the body -object- in the pool, but the body can see it’s own reflexion on the windows, superimposed on the dark figure of the voyeur. Josephine sees herself being seen by another. The pool provides the screen for the juxtapostition of simutaneously a narcissistic and a voyeurstic game

unrolled section

water roomsform finding

water rooms form finding

water rooms form finding

water rooms form finding