Kyranna Fardi

A three-classroom kindergarten in the Charilaou district. The site revealed significant deficiencies in public space, so addressing the public realm became a key design priority: the children's activity and recreation area is lifted onto the roof, returning the ground level to the public.

Access for the children is handled by a gently sloping circular ramp rather than stairs. The building's circular form expresses the concept of compression we pursued, while offering a visual and spatial departure from the rigid, rectangular boundaries of the surrounding urban fabric.

The project restores the Valsani Brothers Mill on Giannitson Street, a historically industrial area shaped by the city's early railway lines. The design respects the mill's dynamic, rigid character while introducing a contemporary architectural language that avoids strict formalism.

Two low-rise buildings on the western side host guest rooms, an amphitheater, and a club, while the mill itself houses a new independent structure with exhibition/museum space, workshops, and a restaurant on an added floor. Restoration preserves the historic shell - replacing deteriorated timber with a metal framework, reopening blind openings with double glazing, and keeping the existing walls to dramatise the contrast between old and new.

The design concerns the creation of two residences in the Evangelistria area of Thessaloniki - two private houses, each accommodating a couple engaged in the field of architecture. The clients' primary request was the inclusion of a workshop space and a view of the mountain.

Although one residence could face the mountain with its entire facade, this was not feasible for the second house. Building on an initial workshop exercise and experiments with physical models centred on the handling of voids and surfaces, the proposal introduced interior gardens - ensuring every room in both houses has a green view.

The plot sits at the intersection of Tsimiski and Ethnikis Amynis Street, surrounded by landmarks - the White Tower, the OTE Tower, the Officers' Club, the YMCA (XANTH). After the 1917 fire, Ernest Hébrard's reconstruction plan introduced wide streets and squares on a strict grid; we observed this strong linear character and the role of the diagonal streets meeting city landmarks.

The mixed-use program (residential, commercial, office) adopts a fractal logic: a grid is laid on the plot, then diagonal axes introduced, retaining one key diagonal as a defining element carrying the commercial volumes and an office floor. Residential volumes line Ethnikis Amynis Street for sunlight and eastward views, while the vertical circulation cores are pulled outside the main masses as bold geometric connectors between public and private space.

The project came in two parts. The first asked for an art intervention in a place of our choice, together with a critical assessment of its results. We chose a public space, Paparrigopoulou park in the centre of the city, where a section of the historic walls of Thessaloniki stands. The intervention focuses on that piece of the walls and sets out to create an ephemeral experience: through its form and atmosphere, the visitor is invited to see how a place can be transformed - from something fixed and settled into something new and alive. It draws on Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose wrapped landscapes and buildings briefly changed the way passers-by perceived places of historic or symbolic meaning.

The second part was an open brief: the subject was entirely ours to choose, as long as it engaged with art. We turned to the director and choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou, in whose work the human body is broken apart and recomposed. Following that idea, the body is fragmented and then put together again in a series of new compositions.