Projet publié greek-architects Twisting Para[Site]'bon mais c'est pas gagné;)'
extrait texte présentation:
In line with the geographical contours of Athens, the urban environment emerged in the
space between the two mountain ranges which encircle the bays and ports of the region.
Strategically situated, they open out onto the Mediterranean Sea, while still substantially
sheltered on all sides. The Piraeus tower is located at the heart of this geography, at an
intersection where past strategies and later urban developments converge and take new
directions. It is thus located on one of the last blocks skirting the edge of the sea, where the
different district patterns merge, based on the plan by Hippodamos. Two of the notable axes
that we find on this plan are dotted on both sides with public facilities and parks. The strip on
which we find the Tower is situated on one of these old axes. The project therefore consists
in giving nature back a place while at the same time respecting the practical application of
the competition guidelines. In this sense, the ghost tower therefore becomes the conjunction
of these gridlines, the previous structure becoming a trace, a sketched line, an unfinished
heritage in need of thinning down. It is literally colonized by a parasitic aerial organism which
lives off, enters and entwines the structure. A different approach to the different entrances
to the commodities was also needed. A small incision on the first four floors creates a
fissure which becomes a substantial covered passage matching the scale of the structure
overlooking it. This action has two aims: firstly to allow light from high above to penetrate
down into the heart of the twist and concentrate commercial activities around a common
vacuum. Secondly, on a regional level, one of the major train stations leading to Athens
can be found a few blocks away from the site. This point of convergence and redirection of
flows, cutting through the sea before chiseling through land, is a core aspect of the tower.
The tower in itself turns into this intersection, its colonised outer layer, or envelope, weaving
together the threads of the plot of land. It becomes both infrastructure and the crystallization
of human movement as well as that of goods and above all the wind. Thus Ariane’s thread
and the winds encounter the Medusa.
