The results of the Urban_Performance workshop have been published on the July issue of the Korean design magazine designnet, v.154.

Glowing cloud is a proposal for the competition organized by the Hellenic World Foundation that was a call for solutions regarding the open space between the three existing buildings of the foundation in Athens, Greece.
The main element of the proposal is a sheltering structure that is made out of translucent boxes, which are providing shadow during the day while becoming lighting devices during the night. The structure consists of a basic grid that has different levels of subdivisions at different places. The degree of the subdivisions is the result of a generative field that encodes information regarding the light / shadow levels of the open space and all the possible movements that have to be accommodated.

info:
Design Team: Theodora Christoforidou, Dimitris Gourdoukis, Katerina Tryfonidou, Fotis Vasilakis.
Date: 2010

The results of the Urban_Performance workshop will be presented at the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art from June 8th to June 13th. The opening of the exhibition is on Tuesday, June 8th, at 20:00

Infrared are presenting Thess Bic Seat? as part of the event “I Thessaloniki Allios” organized by Parallaxi, on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th. The installation suggests a new way of seating at the Nea paralia of Thessaloniki, combined with a space for bicycle stands. The geometry of the constructed object consists of a sequence of gradually differentiating planes thus creating a fluid, complex form. The shape offers many possibilities of ways of seating as well as playing and climbing for the children.

Urban Performance is a workshop taking place from May 18th to May 25th at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Aim of the workshop is to explore how parameters concerning site conditions can guide the design process, while exploring at the same time the possibilities arrising from the use of industrially produced recycled materials. Here is the website of the workshop.
Visiting Professors for the workshop are Heather Woofter and Sung Ho Kim of Axi:Ome llc.

FLOW is a proposal for the urban / landscape development of the Mississippi River along the city of St. Louis. It is an entry for the 2010 Steedman competition where it was awarded with a honorable mention.

A.
Subtle Master Planning
Master planning is not attempting to impose any centrally decided, strict direction. It is supporting already existing elements and is providing the necessary infrastructure for possibilities to arise.
B.
Field of Possibilities
The riverbed is understood as a field of possibilities where any area might be ‘actualized’ due to local interactions. The proposal is providing the agents that will help those possibilities to come to the surface.

Floating, hexagonal platforms are becoming the agents that will actualize the possibilities of the riverbed areas. The platforms are traveling on the river and are able to organize in clusters or assemblies, each time in a different location. The riverbed is understood as a field of possibilities. Instead of actualizing only a limited number of them through master planning, the agents allow virtually any of those possibilities to be actualized over time.
Agents’ formations start from specific, more prominent places on the river edge, but over time, and depending on the reactions of the people, the formations can be assembled virtually at any place along the riverbed, activating this way several different places periodically. The ‘spreading’ of the formations is not predefined but it rather gets organized and developed based on local reactions, much in a self-organized fashion.
Agents’ formations can exist simultaneously at several different places along the river, without any dependency between them. Over time, and as more formations are assembled, patterns of activity will normally arise. Those patterns need not to be predefined. They will be the result of local interactions. The patterns themselfs will also be dynamic and will keep evolving.

C.
Data Flow

The flow of water and goods from north to south that the river accommodated for centuries becomes in the 21st century flow of information, which is controller and transmitted, transforming the display of that data flow into a monument for contemporary societies

Along the river and the areas surrounding its edges is installed a system of monitoring and collecting data concerning several different aspects of the activities and the conditions encountered. The data is archived, studied and evaluated in order to help in the further development of the river. At the same time the collected data is transmitted live at the data tower, an installation in the center of the river, across the arch. The data is abstracted in a field of different intensities. As the flow of information is continuous, the installation is constantly changing its appearance, becoming a live, abstract visualization of what is happening on the river.
Engineering and control over physical forces defined to a great extent monumentality in the 20th century, as is most profoundly displayed in Saariner’s Arch. In the 21st century it is control over information flows that takes its place. The data tower is becoming a ‘monument’ that actualizes the invisible data flows of the river.

info:
Design: Dimitris Gourdoukis.
Date: 2010.
Awards: Steedman Competition 2010. Honorable Mention

P.I.U. – 09 is an attempt to develop a modular typology of living units that are ‘plugged’ in a central core. Therefore two main elements can be distinguished: The core: A concrete structure that facilitates all circulation (vertical and horizontal), common facilities (washing machines, dryers etc) and in places the bathrooms of some units. The second element is made out of multiple living units, distingue from one another. The units are attached to the core, and have a steel structure that works in conjunction with the concrete core. All mechanical support is placed between each floor allowing the units to have a clear, undistracted space. The units are distributed in all the different lots and are able of hosting one or two people each.
The spreading of the typology is based on the linear element of the core that hosts living units on both of its sides. Therefore a continues façade is created on the street side, but also on the interior side of the building. That development allows for open, green spaces to be created in the inner parts of the lots, which spaces offer to the inhabitants a place to relax and stay away from the noise of the city. The open spaces, while they are providing privacy by being behind the buildings, they also function urbanely as ‘hidden’ public spaces, since they are accessible to anyone from the street level. That would allow for interesting relationships to be established between the public space of the city, the private space of the living units and the semi-private / semi-public interior gardens.

info:
Design Team: Dimitris Gourdoukis, Katerina Tryfonidou, Fotis Vasilakis, Theodora Christoforidou, Magdalena Pantazi.
Date: 2009

Here are some of the results for the Digital Representation class, @ AUTH, School of Architecture.

info:
Research: Dimitris Gourdoukis.
Date: 2006.
Publications: Specular, Between Practice and Education. Design Document Series 32, Seoul: DAMDI Publishing Co., 2009.