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Greece Athens Attica Latitude/Longitude studio Annerhed & Papafigou annerhed.papafigou@gmail.com Year 2004 Type of Project public Client Athens TU Area 1230m2 / sq feet Cost Publications

Clustered Actions - Flower Market Athens © Annerhed & Papafigou Description Final project: Pireos / a strategy and a park Athens Technical University Johan Annerhed & Maria Papafigou Pireos / The little more than five kilometres long road full of hectic traffic connecting Athens and Pireas is an area facing great changes in the near future. A once peripheral region as it was, has now become a reminiscence of industrialisation in the central parts of town. The street, starting at Omonia Square, very quick loses its rigid urban character and becomes increasingly fragmented and rough. There is a change in scale and a change of use. This is the place for spacious business like furniture stores, workshops, junkyards and factories: some in use, some deserted and in decay. Pireos street was and is the main connection between Athens and Pireas. It is the exit from one city and the entrance to the other. Entering from Pireas, Athens becomes apparent as you see Parthenon in the distant. But the entrance motif is sold out; acropolis is hidden behind large advertisements. The pride and trademark of Athens is blended in and lost among the muddle of street signs, commercial ads, antennas and buildings. The river Kifissos marks the entrance to the city of Pireas. The same phenomenon; the river is also gone lost. Being the only continuous unbuilt site, it became, through an ingenious idea, the location for the new north going motorway. Now being enclosed in concrete it is hardly noticeable and rather part of the motorway than part of the city weave. You could see Pireos st. area as consisting of two parallel transportation lines; one being the street, a continuous hard surface full of noisy traffic, the other, the railway, also this a continuous open site; a restricted impediment garden. Two individual linear flows, one for cars and the other for trains, with no further connection than the arbitrary. Not only the relationship between the two streams is important but also that between different specific points along the street as well as the one between vehicles and pedestrians, our built environment and nature. The goal is to renew the attention to the city and reanimate social responsibilities. We cannot intervene in this area without considering the present, we cannot neglect the built, the ugly and the disorder but we have to play judo with it in order to find its far-reaching significance. Along the street there are a number of attractors/nodes. Several nodes are located, some of more and other of less importance. By strengthening these "nodes", the relationship between them would also be strengthened and in that way give character to the whole area. This environment at first sight looks like a junkyard, but when looking closer to it, you see all the details and possibilities. We believe that the key is implementing nature in order to redefine the built urban environment of Athens in relation to the green. Clustered actions / Pireos street area is undergoing great changes. In Athens there is no one, authority or corporation, with either the power or the finances to support extensive changes in the area. The region is going to develop in a direction that no one but the future holds. Our intention is to stain this future development, to point out the direction with concentrated, clustered actions. These clusters spread as a chain of poles: the stronger the poles, the stronger also the relation between them. The need for green space is turning in to an urgent issue in Athens. Parks and public spaces is a matter that has been neglected for decades. Urban beauty also becomes increasingly important to a city's status in the global marketplace. Athens has roughly two square meters of green space per capita compared to eight for Paris, 27 for Amsterdam, and 50 for Washington DC. Since Athens is thirsting for green, we propose vegetal clusters to point out the future development and provide a new identity to Pireos street area. Green rather than buildings will serve as the catalyst of urbanisation. Most constructions loose value over time, a park on the other hand will be appreciated as it matures. In this way the value of present real estate and future investments increase together with the park. Nature and culture in symbiosis: "property development with perennial enrichment." © Annerhed & Papafigou © Annerhed & Papafigou © Annerhed & Papafigou