midcrit

Athens

The site locates in the area of Ampelokipi to the northwest of Acropolis, It’s a refugee housing complex at Alexandras avenue, comprises 8 three floors blocks, the reason why I chose this site is because there is a huge contradiction and contrast between the blocks and the surrounding environment.

It was a public housing project that the government built for the refugees from aisa minor. Back to the aisa minor disaster happened in 1922, a huge volume of refugees about 1,200,000 were transported to Greece without all their possessions,25% of them arrived in Athens, there were no settlements for them at first, they had to build their houses by whatever building materials they could find, so the settlements used to existed as tent villages and shanty towns, there was a refugee camp to the southwest of the stadium during 1922-1930, 10 years after that the social housing development began, the Alexandras complex was built in 1935, and it’s one of the earliest examples of modern movement in Greece, it’s distinctive in its abundance open space between the buildings. Physically it’s a progress for the living condition but socially it’s a place where the refugees were secluded, not only because one of the most infamous prisons stood next to them but also because of the formless outdoor space was left and contain the blocks. It’s a kind of loose space with no defined uses even without trees, a wide highway sits infront of them, it’s symbolically be set apart from the urban fabric,I defined it a heterotopia in this area.

Although the refugees were demonized as invaders that would destroy the public lives, they successfully re-etablished their social life by making their own social network, they planted trees，renovated the pavements, turned the space in between into a crucial node for public space that connected the indoor space and the outdoor space, like the staircases ,the laundry rooms and the extended courtyards even balconies became a part of the network, it became an active space with high complex urban curlture, since then it slowly integrated to the surrounding neibourhood.

 

But long time after, the government planned to demolish it and promised a park in place, the pressure for the inhabitants made them hesitant to spend any more money for the maintenance, the condition of the complex got worse and worse, some owners sold their houses, some rented their flats to new immigrants or low income person, some moved out left it empty.

Now, the complex has fallen into ruin, the flats are occupied by the new immigrants, squatters, all of them are low-income class, the space between the buildings become an imformal parking lot for the surrounding public buildings, the prison nearby was replaced by the court of justice, while the police headquarter sits on the other side, the relationship of those three is a kind of subtle, two institutions represent power located on both sides while the imformal housing with some illegal squatters just sits in between.

 HK

SSP locates to the northwest of Tsi Sha Chui ,it is one of the oldest area in HK and where the urban renewal project mainly take place now. My interest for this site is also the huge contrast between the old and new and what the urban renewal projects will bring to the heaven for low-income class. There are some similarities between Sham Shui Po and the complex, they are both settlements for new immigrants  and low income class, the condition of the buildings are both degraded and they all have a huge contrast between the old and new, however the 2 sites are facing different situation.

Hong kong is a city with extremely high density, the city changes very fast, while Greece is facing the urban decay with the development stopped, and there will be a big change in social structure in SSP by the URP which is unstoppable that the government want to develop the protential economic value of this area so they started to integrate this area with the middle class but I doult if it’s really integration or just want to kick the low income class out, because SSP has a very good location.

The diagram below shows the changes in street vitality from the center area of Sham Shui Po to the edge area where the urban renewal project take place, I walked from Apliu street down to the West Kowloon Corridor through 7 blocks,I can obviously feel that the street vitality and the commercial activities reduced but an increase in the number of high-rise buildings and abandoned tang-lou more shut down shops and fewer pedistrains.

And I want to figure out what’s behind this phenomenon,then I realized that the vitality reduce because of the decrease in diversity. The reason why the central area is so prosperous is because the space is multi- functional like residential ,commercial, market ,feast ,eating, recreational and any other kind of spontaneous activities, some of these functions are long-lasting ,some are temporal, some are overlapping without any boundries , the  variaty in the forms of stalls is a good example of multi use space,this combination of such diversity stimulate the vitality.

 

While what URP do is to simplify the function lke move the street market into podium and left the pavements just a places for crossing.I took this photo from a market in podium and make a comparson with the market on street, it’s easy to find the differences.

But now the vitality is dissapearing because of the change in social structure, the boundries of different functions are slowly forming by the Urban Renewal Project.

The site in Athens has the same problems,they have clear boundries between different functions, and the function of each space is so simple ,and what I want to do for the next step is bluring the boundries between different functions and generate these  abandoned fragments ,reuse and integrate the unuse land by creating a diverse functional environment which would help to active the blocks and the surrounding space.