On The Verge


« It is shallow people who do not judge by appearance ».
Oscar Wilde
How our lives are framed within the clusters of rooms, buildings, streets and cities that we inhabit?
This project is driven by the belief in the potency of places to touch our lives- in the best and in the worst of ways. Architects and urban designers engage with the articulation of dreams – imagining and constructing a better future in someone’s interest. The project investigates how architectural built forms act as mediators of social practices of power. The Greek Government – cultural department- suggests to inhabit – confine –enclose homeless immigrants of the city centre of Athens, Metaxourgreio, in a new twin tower which will be located in the same place. The proposed towers dominate the skyline of nearly all major cities, a global building type that penetrates into the organic city grid. In advance the Greek government solution offers a distinctive image to which immigrants are invited to cover their status with a false image. This quest is for an image of the building as figure against a background which may be achieved in a variety of ways. This project argues that the discourse of distinction is inseparable from that of power, it embodies metaphors of strength, stature and strategy. Therefore the project criticizes through the design of a third tower, which would be located in the same site with the other two, Government’s paradox solution to undercover great social issues such as immigration through status buildings. This is a new world of spatial practices and representations we are entering at once seductive and coercive, exciting and autocratic. K. Dovey