Sprinkles - Fatura

DRW

Competition

KOZANI, GREECE

Sprinkles

National Architectural Competition for the redesign of the Central Square (Nikis Square) in Kozani, Greece.

Nikis Square, due to its centrality but also to the important historical buildings that surround it, is the most important landmark of the city of Kozani, one of special historical and symbolic significance. In its current form, the square is organised around a large central “void” framed by several sub-areas dedicated to the daily functions of the square. It is this dual sense of scale and public character of the square that our design captures.
At the centre of the proposal lies an empty platform for open and public events that symbolically represents the “commons” as an urban category. On the east and north sides of this platform, the proposal re-introduces the micro-scale and informality of the site: a dense garden and spaces of relaxation and play. The garden is paved with cobblestones, which allow for vegetation to grow freely through their cracks, perforations, and joints.
The third element of the proposal is the water slit, a linear pool that aligns with the adjacent bell tower. This water element extends through the entire site, separating, but at the same time bridging the two main areas of the square. At the northern end of the pool, a small waterfall and a water-tower made of perforated, oxidised metal sheet, in shades of yellow and orange carries the pattern-image of Kozani’s local flower of Krokos.

Team

Platon Issaias

Theodossis Issaias

Giorgos Mitsogiorgis

Alexandra Vougia

Collaborators

Ilias Matsas / Mechanical Engineer

Andreas Zikos / Biologist

Categories

Environment, Public, Sustainability, Urban

About

Fatura Collaborative – Research & Design Practice, was founded in 2009 and is developing projects across a wide range of scales, from intimate objects and performance, to architecture, urban design and planning. We are interested in architecture as social infrastructure, in developing collective equipments, in the design of spaces of care, empathy and welfare. We design and research expanding new problematics about ecology, the domestic, everyday life and the city.

Members

ELISAVET HASA
ARCHITECT

is an architect, researcher and educator based in London. She holds a diploma in architecture from the School of Architecture of the University of Patras, Greece (2015) and was awarded a PhD from the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art (2022). Her thesis dealt with the materiality of grassroots, ad hoc and mutual aid projects by social movements in Europe and the United States, with an emphasis on their relationship with the state. She is teaching in undergraduate architectural design studios and history and theory courses at the London South Bank University and Central Saint Martins. She is also a registered architect in the UK (ARB) and Greece (TCG) and has practiced architecture in London, Madrid and Athens.

PLATON ISSAIAS
ARCHITECT

is an architect, researcher, and educator. He studied architecture in Thessaloniki, Greece, and holds an MSc from Columbia University and a PhD from TU Delft and The City as a Project research collective. He is Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at the School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the co-Head of Projective Cities MPhil programme at the Architectural Association, where he is also teaching Diploma Unit 7 with Georgia Hablützel and Hamed Khosravi. His research interests explore urban design and architecture in relation to the politics of labour, economy, law and labour struggles. He has written and lectured extensively about Greek urbanisation and the politics of urban development.

THEODOSSIS ISSAIAS
ARCHITECT

(he/him) is an architect and educator. He serves as Curator, Heinz Architectural Center, at Carnegie
Museum of Art and Special Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. He studied
architecture in Athens, Greece, and holds a Master of Science in Architecture and Urbanism from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on architecture at the intersection of
human rights, conflict, and the provision of shelter. This interest led to his PhD dissertation
“Architectures of the Humanitarian Front” (2021, Yale University), which examined a period
around WWI when conflict, displacement, and territorial insecurity provoked the reconfiguration
of humanitarian operations –their spatial organization and ethical imperatives.

GIANNANTONIS MOUTSATSOS
ARCHITECT

is an architect based in Lund, Sweden. He graduated in 2010 from the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens and holds an MSc in Energy Efficient and Environmental Building Design from the School of Architecture of Lund University (2015). He has practiced architecture as a freelance architect in Greece and currently in Sweden (eg. Tengbom architects), where he works on a wide range of projects including small houses, larger residential complexes as well as care, educational and industrial facilities.

ALEXANDRA VOUGIA
ARCHITECT

is an architect and an educator. She graduated in 2007 from the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She holds the MSc in Advanced Architectural Design from GSAPP, Columbia University (2008) and a PhD from the Architectural Association – School of Architecture, London (2016). She is currently an Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Architecture at the School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She has previously taught at the Architectural Association and the University of Westminster and practiced as an architect in New York and Athens.

MYRTO VRAVOSINOU
ARCHITECT

is an architect based in Thessaloniki. She graduated from the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2015 and holds an MSc in Environmental Architectural and Urban Design from the same institution (2023). Since 2017, she has been collaborating with a group of freelance engineers, working on a variety of residential, workspace, and small-scale digital fabrication projects. Her special interests lie in urban and architectural design practices that promote spatial justice.