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Fragmented Light - Athenian Thalassotherapy Retreat

Part 2 Project 2020
Vasiliki – Ioli Belezini
Oxford Brookes University Oxford | UK
Can the listed Glassworks & Fertilizers’ factory complex co-exist with the Athenian seafront, by transforming its industrial qualities to a more natural environment?

Standing at the entrance of the Piraeus harbor, Glassworks’ current identity is of deconstructed architectural elements, leaving its heavy and solid structure almost ‘transparent’. Letting natural light enter the almost destroyed roof, Glassworks visualised as a new poetic and well-being place of cleanliness; a transition element towards the sea.

Using fragmented light as a critical method for exploration, the new function of the ‘Athenian Thalassotherapy Retreat’ was invented inside the existing scheme, contradicting the original industrial form and use. By observing and recording existing structural geometries, a set of shadow analysis was emerged from this study, exploring new relationships between re-use and re-value materiality, structures, nature, the city and the sea.

So, along with the feeling that I am part of nature, the landscape also gives me the sense of being connected to history [...] The strength of a good design lies in ourselves and in our ability to perceive the world with both emotion and reason. A good architectural design is sensuous. A good architectural design is intelligent. (P. Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 1998, p.95)


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2020
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