Μουσείο Πόλης για την Αθήνα

The object of this study is a City Museum for Athens. A City Museum describes the history of the city and the way this has affected the urban development. The aim is to create not a single, but a set of buildings, which share a common digital logic and which will operate together to form the City Museum. A museum in a network, in multiple interconnected nodes distributed within the urban fabric. Athens can be comprehended as an exhibit, but simultaneously as a museum exposing itself. In this sense, this proposal will function as a mediator to this relation, a catalyst that will link again the city to the user via the process of activating the urban space. With the use of new technologies, an alternative exhibition approach is attempted by new presentation media that promote interactivity.
Swarm architecture was the initial stimulus for the fragmantation of a single building into a network of individual units. A network acts as a ubiquitious urban system, with its units distributed as quasi-objects in the city. The notion of interface is already widely used in urban design, implying networks that provide a type of communication between the units and a broader context, the city.
As far as the form of the buildings is concerned, a tool that will produce different objects of the same family is sought, so as that these are immediately identifiable in the city web. Folding is used as a morphogenetic mechanism. The successive metamorphoses of a strip constitute the genetic algorithm of the form, a genotype by which multiple phenotypes will arise. Architecture is considered as a process that produces forms ranging within the limits of fuzzy logic.
The final choice is a strip which can lead to the maximum range of solutions for the synthetic expressions pursued in the chosen sites. The primary object, the strip, through a sequel of folding is transformed to a 3D object. Iits unfolding produces again the initial surface, a 2D plane, which is the productive, genetic pattern_parametric design as the cause of infinite variaty through topological metamorphoses.
The network of nodes puts the concept of a museum on a new basis. Space doesn’t need to look like a container, sterile, just to accomodate the exhibits. Especially, when in particular, the exhibit itself - the city of Athens - presents such a diversity in expression, the exhibition space can not be a souless, static space. Because Athens is characterized by a spatial dynamic force, the space in which Athens is going to be described should also be dynamic, not only as related to form, but also to content. It should be able to transform constantely, through a database, and not just act as a tank of exhibits.
Project developed as a diploma design thesis at NTUA
supervisor: Prof. Dimitris Papalexopoulos
collaborators: Constantinos Bouras, Maria Vlachou
Το Μουσείο Πόλης που προτείνεται, περιγράφεται στο χάρτη της πόλης ως ένα δίκτυο ή πλέγμα που ορίζεται από την περιγραφή καταστάσεων που επέδρασαν στην πολεοδομική εξέλιξη της πόλης. Αυτοί οι αστικοί ρυθμιστές αποτελούν και τις θεματικές ενότητες του μουσείου και είναι η τοπογραφία, η αρχαία Αθήνα, οι ρωμαϊκοί χρόνοι, η βυζαντινή εποχή, η περίοδος της Τουρκοκρατίας, η πρωτεύουσα του νέου κράτους, η μοντέρνα Αθήνα, η βιομηχανία, οι πρόσφυγες, η αυθαίρετη δόμηση, οι μετανάστες, η σύγχρονη Αθήνα, τα δίκτυα μεταφορών, η πολιτιστική Αθήνα, τα σχέδια πόλης. Σε σχέση με τη μορφή, αναζητείται ένα εργαλείο που θα παράγει διαφορετικά αντικείμενα της ίδιας οικογένειας, ώστε αυτά να είναι άμεσα αναγνωρίσιμα μέσα στην πόλη. Χρησιμοποιείται η πτύχωση ως μορφογενετικός μηχανισμός. Οι διαδοχικές μεταμορφώσεις μίας κορδέλας συνιστούν τον γενετικό αλγόριθμο της μορφής, έναν γονότυπο από όπου θα προκύψουν πολλαπλοί φαινότυποι. Η αρχιτεκτονική ως διαδικασία που παράγει μορφές οι οποίες κινούνται στα όρια της ασαφούς λογικής.
Διπλωματική εργασία στη σχολή Αρχιτεκτόνων Ε.Μ.Π.
Μαρία Βλάχου, Άννα Μπενέτου, Κωνσταντίνος Μπούρας
Επιβλέπων Καθηγητής: Δημήτρης Παπαλεξόπουλος