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Architect / Illustrator / PhD candidate in Architectural Design / Senior Teaching Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL liangifi_at_gmail_dot_com / Unless stated otherwise, all work on this blog is made by Ifigeneia Liangi, Athens, 1988.

13 March 2011

These two drawings are a view from the south. The upper hall with the colourful facade becomes a kind of lecture space as parts of it open up. Colour is projected onto the existing building (i ll show it in another drawing). The wooden benches-balconies that sit on the long "public" strip seem as if hang from the upper hall and it is an initial idea of how I could link the strip, the outside main staircase (and lift) with the truss to create a new space. The little tower that sits on the diamond column (hmm...) is the hall that I want to pay attention to next. At the moment I need to read and understand the procurement methods and how I am going to give parameters to the story and start writing it.





In order to understand and learn through my project, I started giving attention to the halls one by one. This is one of the halls that can host up to four university students and has a lecture space for about ten primary school students. (The next step is to specify all the economical issues, ideas and programme through diagrams). In relation to the existing buildings it sits around the fifth floor. Although Kipseli is the most dense populated area of Athens and relatively to the number of the city's inhabitants one of the most dense populated areas in the world, and very highly polluted in terms of air but sound as well, it is surprising to see that birds come back and build their nests inside the ventilation systems of the flats, particularly at the upper apartments. So the idea of this hall is to function as a tree house where the facade's stripy windows and shaders pattern the light on the floor inside as a tree in the forest and could potentially become nests for the birds. All the capsule halls of the building have disabled access, but the hall with the inverted tent that sits underneath the tree house is the most probable one of hosting disabled people because it is the nearest one to the main ramp of the building.

11 March 2011

This is a view from the north side, and i started applying materials. Maybe I could put some safety floor or fabric under the triangle truss bridge so that people could go in it. And i have to figure out how people won't fall from the 105step staircase. And the truss should probably be duplicated for the upper floor..or i ll have to add columns.

Masterplan of possible student halls-schools in the area and a future skyline for the change of the urban condition of the site.

10 March 2011

Surprisingly, this quick diagram of how the spaces work in terms of privacy and circulation helps me to think about the environmental and structural aspect of the building in a way. Openings,  and specification of materials. There is a lot of concrete..but..what kind of concrete and how do I use it in different spaces to give the effect that I want. 

This is one of the inside spaces. The colour is very basic but i'm learning how to uv map now so i hope to have better results in the next ones. The render at the top is the model developed a little. It looks a bit like "triplettes de belleville" but i kind of like that at the moment.

09 March 2011

the building is on the way

This is a diagram of the plans with the different capsule halls. I have organised some of them to see how practical things work...well in fact it was fun doing that. It came out that I had to have a common kitchen and bathroom for two of the five halls which ended up in an interesting gap in between them; maybe another capsule house or a chimney for getting cleaner air from the top of the building. The above render is one of the two facades i'm working on at the moment. The environmental consultant told me today that it is a good idea for shading, so i ll keep it. The little plastic square panels turn in two axis and there is no worry for them turning the balcony into a sauna as i was afraid would be the case, because wind comes from the east-west direction. The lower square and circle pieces can turn and become sits and tables for a potential small lecture space. The funky coloured barriers are a result of..hmm...playground influence? At the moment I am learning uv texturing so that I can show the materiality of each one of the pieces and i' ll have to model the big truss that spams from core to core because the engineer told me it has to be 1.8m high...i think it will change a lot the visual aspect of the building. (but i'll make it colourful). I made a plan of the pages that I need for the report. There is a lot to learn, but that's a good thing i suppose. For the crit i hope to have a clear analysis of the demographics so that i will be able to speak a bit about the political aspect of the project without over-narrativising it.