Polykatoikia is a Greek version of the typical, modern, generic, multi-storey apartment building. The project, a 1:20 dollhouse, is an inhabited architectural section. Each room is a scene about a polykatoikia, its occupants, and their—stereotypical—reality. Unlike a plan, a section reveals the complexity of aggregated living. Unlike abstract architectural models, only with an obsession on materiality and details of occupancy, can we see how ordinary domestic interiors embody a good life.

The Berlage Thesis 2016

Thesis advisors: Thomas Weaver, Ido Avissar, Salomon Frausto

Guests: Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo Kajima (Atelier Bow-Wow)

Film expert and advisor: Mauricio Freyre

Photos by Peter Tijhuis

Thesis Documentary: https://vimeo.com/152309318

Project Description

For the Greeks, good life is a ''Grand Life.'. Overabundance of stuff.  Mass education. Cosmopolitanism. Home Ownership. Polykatoikia is the Greek version of the typical, modern, generic, multi-storey apartment building. Initially designed by architects in the 1930s as a modern, urban dwelling type; in the post-war period, its design was banalised, massively reproduced. Since 2008, an increasing vacancy, due to the crisis sets the polykatoikia as primary figure for urban decay. Today, Greek city is a “City of Repetition,” and polykatoikia its unadmitted monument. This project celebrates its banal architecture, because it is emblematic of a massive opportunity for  good life; a truly democratic way of planning, designing and building a city.

Yet, a distinction must be made between contemporary polykatoikias in suburbs, where opulence dominates design, and polykatoikias of the 1960s, which both by design and politics propose a socially inclusive model of collective living, in form of vertical social differentiation. From a vibrant street and a bourgeois entrance hall, over to a typical, middle-class apartment, neighbour to an old high class family, over to a loft, and a student's mini-apartment, back to a young couple's open-plan, renovated apartment, and an Albanian's third floor house, to a semi-basement occupied by six Pakistanis, under a 24/7 groceries shop. All these stories represent relationships that make this generic building type specific, but are always absent from its architectural representations.

One basic floor plan is often enough to construct a polykatoikia. However, only through a building section, can we understand what different spatial conditions facilitate this variety of occupants. As a critical contribution to the Greek post-war city's scholarship, my project inhabits an abstract section with rhetorical, aesthetic and cultural stereotypes. Can we design this absurdly banal type as utopia beyond crisis, by employing humour as tool and by adopting a new aesthetic iconography?

The project, a 1:20 dollhouse, is an absurdist rhetorical device, critiquing abstract representations of life in architectural projects. Split in two parts, a representational dialectic is made obvious between an architectural polykatoikia model (white, abstract, empty, generic, repetitive) and  a dollhouse (colourful, material, inhabited, specific, varied).  Each room is a scene about a polykatoikia, its occupants, and  their—stereotypical—reality. The scenes recall Perec's ''Life, a User's Manual''. From Victorian Dolls' Houses to a Barbie Dreamhouse, a dollhouse typically represents idealized views of domesticity in a minute scale. Apart from a representational exercise, the dollhouse speculates on the polykatoikia’s evolution. Vertical repetition is replaced by diverse arrangements extending both horizontally and vertically. The dollhouse exaggerates interior differences that eventually modify facades to backyard or to lightwells. Huge, almost empty rooms, next to tiny ones, object-packed. A barely-lived living room, next to a living room after a party. A messy bedroom, under a collector's neat bedroom. The roof as both a residual space, accommodating infrastructure, and an extension of domestic interiors.

As a whole, the dollhouse is an inhabited architectural section. Unlike a plan, a section reveals the complexity of aggregated living. It reveals on what collective existence is based -be it today mechanized systems of infrastructure. It makes obvious spaces share by people who may not even know each other and material conditions that become object of conflict in our everyday life. Unlike a plan, through a section can one understand urban architecture. Unlike abstract architectural models, only with an obsession on materiality and details of occupancy, can we see how ordinary domestic interiors embody a good life.                             

From humour to cynicism, from scenarios to building designs, from analytics to polemics, a reality-based project can be both imaginative and socially pertinent, both professionally aligned and academically rigorous. Each of our projects explores existing archetypes of representation as critical tools in order to position architecture as both a professional and intellectual act. Each project can be understood through a singular artefact. Hence, each project is an allegory of one concept in which we find unity despite our own specific interpretations: whether banal, mundane, trivial or extraordinary, spectacular, eventful... there are multiple Good Lives.

Book

Scenes from the Good Life. Frausto S. (ed.). The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, Delft University of Technology. 2016. (ISBN 978-94-6186-602-8)

Exhibition

27/01-08/02/2016: 'Scenes from the Good Life'.  BK Expo. Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

 N. Efklidou (GR), T. Chayasombat (TH), J. Culek (HR),  A. Gerasimova (RU), B. de Hartog (NL), F. Kholid (MY), C. Lubell (CA), P. Mazzocca (VE), J. Zhang (CN).

March to December, everyday life in Greece happens outside. Atriums, courtyards, balconies become extensions of private interiors. In Seoul, few decades of West- & Japan-oriented development have transformed the city into a megacity of 10 million inhabitants. To meet the density needs, natural light and air become negotiable commodities. As more and more time is spent in interior, air conditioned spaces, more and more ‘’artificial nature’’ appears in malls, workspaces or public buildings. ’Nature’’ appears as image (real or fake plants), as sound (real or recorded bird sounds) or as smell (real or fake bread). The more fake, the more beautiful!

The project proposes a series of different courtyards and ‘’interior gardens’’, as semi- public or private spaces, to structure a mega-building development. Around them, varied activities (living, working, leisure, retail) are articulated. The sequence from courtyard to courtyard reintroduces spatial hierarchy between private and public life for Koreans. Being ‘’underground’’ (i.e. no natural light), these courtyards redefine the platform as a solely commercial domain. Whether ‘’underground’’ or ‘’aboveground’’, artificially or naturally conditioned, fake or real, public or private, interior gardens question the inhabitability of the thick ground of a densely populated metropolis.

Project Seoul

The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design

Instructor: Diederik de Koning

Local Expert: Seungbom Roh

Project Documentary: https://vimeo.com/155961395

SUPER-SUPERBLOCK

Seoul has achieved and grown an incredible amount since Independence and the Korean War. It has established itself as a truly global power with densely developed transportation and technological networks, and a vibrant culture operating 24 hours a day. It caught up, it is the competition. The subsequent need for density is met by the superblock development model without question. As an urban type for Seoul, the superblock should foster the city’s multiple spatial hierarchies and therefore  stakeholders, while still managing to achieve high densities. The typical Seoul superblock is developed through a multi-programmatic mega-structure.

Our project is a counter-proposal to the typical Superblock model by proposing layered platforms (multi-level grounds) that distribute varied real estate values throughout the mega-structure both vertically and horizontally.

This strategy is particularly relevant for the test site of Yongsan Station. It is the largest fragment of Seoul left for redevelopment and is therefore highly valuable land. If a new megastructure for Yongsan can bridge the legacy of Seoul’s major urban structures, namely the winding laneways, courtyards, linear arteries and superblocks, then it has the potential to both stabilize and catalyze a more integrated development with a boundary than can change over time.

By developing an internal logic driven by spaces of access and connection, the streets, courtyards, and vertical circulation, an alternative to the developer’s programmatically driven model is proposed which integrates diverse spatial hierarchies. Clustered together these spaces of connection break the superblock down into smaller, identifiable urban blocks, which can be independently designed fragments within the larger whole. In order to organise and control the relationship between programs but not the program itself, a unifying structural grid becomes an urban design tool which ties the architectural structure and the mega-structure together. A simple grid based on modules of 3,0 meters allows for variations within the system, including the smallest scale of business, apartment, or bang which is characteristic of Seoul. This is therefore neither a single building, nor an assembly of buildings. This is a piece of city.

Project Seoul

The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design

Team: Nafsika Efklidou (GR), Anastasiia Gerasimova (RU), Claire Lubell (CA)

Instructor: Diederik de Koning

Local Expert: Seungbom Roh

The linear ‘dike’ villages of Oldambt are tight settlement forms, composed of housing plots, aligned one next to the other, perpendicularly to the road. The house unit generates the village form, while being interchangeable element. In the current context, Oldambt's settlements are facing the reality of remoteness, shrinkage and a rapidly rising aging population. This proposal envisions a future scenario, where increasing housing vacancy pro­vides a unique opportunity to reconfigure elements of the linear village; therefore, activating its flexible structure as spatial type.

Minimum, low-maintenance spatial interventions enable for the transformation of these ‘now-free’ plots into diversified forested corridors. Corridors to open up the village to the countryside. Demolition of vacant houses. Giving the plots 'back-to-nature'. Wildlife gradually evolves. The demarcation of the plots with a lightweight, wired fence mediates between a ‘wild’ condition and the main road. To stimulate the passer-by, the view to the agrarian landscape is framed. This structure is a transitory space, where temporary uses can be accommodated.

By 2050, Oldambt will re-enter a phase of prosperity and development. This project deals with the meantime. It is an attempt to increase the value and at­tractiveness of the area, by integrating nature into the linear village structure. Domesticated, controlled, designed nature is replaced by a wilderness network.

Project NL: Noordoostpolder, Oldambt, Westland

The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design.

Instructor: Sanne van den Breemer

Design Critic and Scholar: David van Severen, Nelson Mota

Expert Lecturers: Matthijs Bouw, Olaf Gipser

Project Documentary: https://vimeo.com/133037439

Territory-bound Domesticity: Minimum Interventions for Territorial Decline in Oldambt

In spite of negative realities, large part of the locals is still strongly attached to the region’s local culture and landscape of vast agricultural fields and emptiness. Through our complementary -or contrasting- projects, qualities and potentials are identified, which trigger strategies of intervention. The projects deal with minimum spatial interventions, which potentially will have a big future impact. New living environments are envisioned, in relation to the territory, while integrating the local socioeconomic conditions. Our vision for the area addresses a future renewed living/working/leisure, rural lifestyle, both for individuals and communities.

Project NL: Noordoostpolder, Oldambt, Westland

The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design.

Team: Nafsika Efklidou (GR), Tritip Chayasombat (TH)

Instructor: Sanne van den Breemer

Project Documentary: https://vimeo.com/133037439

The architect holds a unique ability to analyse, critique, articulate and synthesize specific conditions, while at the same time transforming them into future projections. In that sense, the architect influences the production of space by means of disciplinary Fundamentals, using a chosen set of Methods to orchestrate collaboration among Actors and appropriate the power of existing Agitators. These four categories form the common ground of practice. Depending on the way we position ourselves towards the ambiguity of such terms as Agency-Advocacy-Authorship, we assume a significant role as mediators.

The Berlage Design Masterclass 2014: 'Architecture Without Architects. Architects without Architecture?'

N. Efklidou (GR), with T. Chayasombat (TH), J. Culek (HR),  A. Gerasimova (RU), B. de Hartog (NL), F. Kholid (MY), C. Lubell (CA), P. Mazzocca (VE), J. Zhang (CN).

Instructors: Hans Teerds, Tom Avermaete (Chair of Methods and Analysis, TU Delft)

AMS (Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropol­itan Solutions) advocates itself as an open platform for collaboration. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary inter­action will take place in a time-based pavilion. A pavilion of walls that can rotate or slide in order to create appropriate space for specific program i.e. an indi­vidual workspace, a small space for debate, or even a large lecture room. The boundaries are to be negotiated by the users themselves. This constant negotiation of space in the timeframe of a day or a week allows for the Idea Machine to operate flex­ibly and enable creative practices.

The Berlage Design Masterclass 2014

'Architecture Without Architects. Architects without Architecture?'

Team: N. Efklidou (GR), A. Gerasimova (RU), N. Morkoc (NL), M. De Vries (NL)

Instructors: Ben van Berkel, Christian Veddeler (UN Studio), Hans Teerds (Chair of Methods and Analysis, TU Delft)

River Evros is today the natural border between Greece and Turkey. The city of Orestiada situated 5 km away from the border is completely cut off the river, since the riverbed has been demarcated restricted area for civilians by the army. Apart from the national border, successive physical boundaries in the territory -dykes , ditches and a railroad- further separate the city from its productive landscape.

The area of intervention is the central part of the railway. The continuity of the boundary is disrupted both in scale and time, through small-scale interventions and a long-term scheme adaptive to the city's scale. The'' eroding flow'' as the main characteristic of the river constitutes our design tool in order to reshape the ground of the area and connect city and farmland. ''Islands'' host several cultural, educational and commercial uses, while the ''eroding flow'' is a large public space for the city, where urban farming areas, open-air pavilions and exhibition spaces are arranged as ''branches carried away by the flow''.

Design Thesis 2013

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Team: Nafsika Efklidou, Dimitris Aggelis, Athina Georgopoulou

Thesis advisors: Stavros Vergopoulos, Evie Athanasiou

Streams are neglected parts in a Greek city, not only incapable of being appropriated by the citizens, but also diminished in size by the surrounding buildings. A series of designed wall elements -artificial (corten steel) or natural (climbing plants) mediate between the street and the city. The plateaus created are open to host activities, but mainly invite the citizens to discover the stream simply wondering, touching, smelling, or hearing elements in the landscape.       

Landscape Design Studio 2012

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Instructors: Maria Tratsela

University buildings are commonly isolated in campuses outside city life. That will not be the case for the new Drama School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki which is located on the east entrance to the city centre among a cluster of culture-related buildings. Hence, the design focuses in strengthening the public character of the school. A public square, little below street level, is the main design feature where citizens meet the school's creative community. An atrium brings natural light to the plaza.

Design Studio 2013

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Instructors: Aleka Alexopoulou, Petros Martinidis

''Before I start designing an architectural project, I frequently go through a period of fantasies and illusions. Any future construction must be the outcome of fantasy's torment, so that a detailed architectural and technical study may take place later.''

(E. Papayannopoulos, 1991)

Easily categorized a brutalist architect -Le Corbusier's most fervent admirer, even copier- Papayannopoulos has escaped historical overviews, although among his contemporaries he has always been an emblematic figure. This project re-positions Papayannopoulos within a history of post-war Greek architecture, by outlining his personal style, methods and views of an architect's project and role within society. Just a closer look to his work reveals a personal style that is defined by his very own idiosyncratic features as both an architect and a painter. Idealist, dreamer, generous, observant, firm in his beliefs, he designs by merging architecture and painting. His work is characterized by a detailed articulation of time as sequences from built to open spaces, as well as designs that favour collectiveness as a central preoccupation.

During this 3-year long project, I documented -for the first time- the architect's archive (drawings, paintings, texts, books, photos, models, publications). Parallel to documentation, I interviewed architects, contemporaries of Papayannopoulos (1939-1998), as well as some of his clients. Among them are Dimitris Katzourakis, Tasos Mpiris, Giorgos Provelegios, Agni Kouvela, Dimitris Fatouros, Stelios Zairopoulos, Antonis Apergis.  Finally, fieldtrips to several of his built projects offered me an opportunity to witness his buildings in a post-occupancy state, commonly meticulously maintained in their original state by the owners.

Research Thesis 2014

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)

Thesis advisors: Claudio Connena, Kuriaki Tsoukala, Andreas Giakoumakatos

Special thanks to Giorgos Papayannopoulos for offering me the opportunity to work with his father's Archive.

Source of inspiration for this hotel complex was the site: a former wetland. Our design focused on a dialectical relationship between the buildings and the landscape, where one complements the other. In a dialectical relationship between the wetland landscape and a rational architectural design, the buildings are conceived as stable components in a continuously changing natural setting. 

Design Studio 2011

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Team: Nafsika Efklidou, Anastasia Tzioutziou, Konstantina Papagianni

Instructors: Giorgos Zoidis, Giannis Tsoukalas

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. Provision of infrastructure to the user (electricity plugs, wi-fi connection, water supply etc). the opportunity to rearrange urban furniture (like plug-in stools), collective management (urban farming areas, neighborhood parks)... a synergetic public space is conceived as dynamic and adaptable to changes.

Urban Design Studio 2014

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Team: N. Efklidou, O-G. Hatzitheofilou, N. Xenos

Instructors: Constantinos Spiridonidis, Antonis Moras