Losing Grip
Urban friction and defamiliarisation as productive architectural force
A. Nazou (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Kousoulas – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
R.R.J. van de Pas – Mentor (TU Delft - History, Form & Aesthetics)
R.R. van den Ban – Mentor (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Contrary to human tendency to hypostasise and stabilise as a means of navigating the chaotic forces of this world, it is reconfiguration through perpetual destabilisation that allows one to grow, transform and venture into novelty. The process of defamiliarisation, by which one detaches from a state of familiarity and comfort, extending outwardly to embrace flux, is both liminal and complex. Liminal in that it entails the perpetual crossing of a limit and complex in the ways that this crossing is actualised. Could this relationship be of spatial concern?
The research brought forward, navigates productive rule-bending, humour and maintaining a playfully speculative stance towards architecture, that stretches beyond typological barriers; beyond that which is familiar. It is the result of a strong desire to experiment with unconventional ways of thinking and doing architecture. The proposed playground in Exarcheia, in the centre of Athens, explores urban friction as quality and rises to protest the sterilization of the modern city and the often homogenised, comfortable and safety-obsessed urban environments that surround us…