A Civic Framework for Urban Knowledge Production and Participation

Abstract

This graduation project investigates how architecture can mediate between governance, urban knowledge production, and civic participation through the design of a new Ministry of Urban Living Conditions in Athens. The project responds to the gap between changing urban conditions and the institutional processes through which they are observed, interpreted, and acted upon. In Athens, recurring cycles of construction growth, decline, vacancy, reuse, and renewal have produced spatial challenges that require forms of governance capable of continuous adaptation and public engagement. The proposed ministry is conceived not only as an administrative body, but as an open civic framework in which public authorities, professionals, researchers, students, civic organisations, and citizens participate in the production and ex- change of urban knowledge. At its centre is the Urban Forum, containing the Athens Urban Mod- el Hall and a movable 1:500 model of the metropolitan region. Around this civic core, the Urban Laboratory, Urban Academy, and Urban Commons support research, fabrication, education, professional exchange, and public collaboration. The design is organised through a fractal spatial logic that combines institutional coherence with local autonomy. A stable structural framework, continuous hovering roof, and system of courtyards unify the distributed clusters while allowing changing patterns of occupation over time. Adaptability is therefore embedded not through physical transformation of the building, but through the shifting relationship between users, programmes, and urban development cycles. The project demonstrates how institutional architecture can move beyond closed administration and become a civic platform for continuous learning, participation, and the collective shaping of urban futures.