Christos Papastergiou | NTUA - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Christos Papastergiou
FOOTPRINT Delft Architecture Theory Journal
In this article I introduce the alien view of the traveller, the view from outside, as presented ... more In this article I introduce the alien view of the traveller, the view from outside, as presented in a number of travel narratives describing the type of the domestic enclosed garden in Nicosia. I focus on three books published between the fourteenth and twentieth century, and do a comparative analysis of the narratives based on the information they provide about Nicosian gardens. I investigate how this knowledge can be used to develop design strategies for gardens as a typology in architectural and urban design. As a demonstration, I discuss the project ‘Nicosian Garden Network’, which uses the historically iconic element of the garden and its narrated spatial qualities as an answer to the problem of urban fragmentation and the presence of a large number of unused plots in the city of Nicosia. The project incorporates unused sites of different sizes into a network of shared semi-public urban spaces that could reconnect the landscape, create conditions of sharing by the different communities on a daily basis, and regain its iconic presence in the contemporary city. The article aims to contribute to the discussion about ways in which travelogues, guides and other forms of travel literature can construct a field of knowledge about vernacular architecture and implement contemporary approaches to architectural design.
From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke ... more From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke Louis Savator of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg Royal family who visited Cyprus in 1873, recorded travelogues repeatedly refer to the gardens of Nicosia as an identifying element of the city. Either in the form of productive orchards during the Lusignan Era, a compound of exotic plants and animals during the Venetian Rule or an enclosed- mystical domestic space with cisterns and small hammams during the Ottoman Rule, gardens hidden at the rear of the house and aside of the daily domestic routines, have claimed their historical place in the Cypriot capital city as heterotopic islands referring mainly to the stimulation of senses. By looking at historical documents and surviving historical gardens such as that of the Dragoman Kornesios, the article wants to highlight the ‘rear’ placement of this architectural element that also reflects its ‘rear’ function. The garden becomes the part of...
The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in ar... more The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in architectural literature as design strategy for shrinking urban environments. Within a contemporary context of increasing co-existence of manmade and natural environments in expanding metropolitan areas, archipelago becomes a pertinent strategy with sustainable potentials. With this article, we aim to introduce possible ways of using this strategy in natural contexts, which are gradually becoming part of expanding urban agglomeration areas. We go on further to talk about an ‘archipelago à la carte’ where the various users can shape their own archipelagos across natural and artificial environments and yet retain amongst them a common ground. The case study is the proposal for the Liopetri Fishing Harbour and Park in Cyprus, which was submitted by our team, (Ioannou, Papastergiou, Stratis) and was awarded the 3d prize in a two stage architectural competition. The article is part of a researc...
archimaera, 2021
From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke ... more From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke Louis Savator of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg Royal family who visited Cyprus in 1873, recorded travelogues repeatedly refer to the gardens of Nicosia as an identifying element of the city. Either in the form of productive orchards during the Lusignan Era, a compound of exotic plants and animals during the Venetian Rule or an enclosed- mystical domestic space with cisterns and small hammams during the Ottoman Rule, gardens hidden at the rear of the house and aside of the daily domestic routines, have claimed their historical place in the Cypriot capital city as heterotopic islands referring mainly to the stimulation of senses. By looking at historical documents and surviving historical gardens such as that of the Dragoman Kornesios, the article wants to highlight the ‘rear’ placement of this architectural element that also reflects its ‘rear’ function. The garden becomes the part of the domestic space that hosts, protects and cultivates all the informal activities of the domestic life. The purpose of this article is to explore the ‘rear’ function of the domestic gardens of Nicosia in their historical context, as well as investigate its role as an element that still survives today and identifies the relation of architecture with the place, possibly bearing possibilities of resistance to cultural homogenisation.
studies in History and Theory of Architecture, 2021
By introducing the idea of the ‘Junk Playground’, the Danish landscape architect Carl Theodor Sør... more By introducing the idea of the ‘Junk Playground’, the Danish landscape architect Carl Theodor Sørensen understood play as an ‘anti-aesthetic’ activity. Sørensen came up with the idea of the junk playground by observing the free play of children in post-war junkyards and bombsites and their imaginative use of disposed objects found on site. He believed that such a playground could promote an anti-aesthetic quality as an important quality of free play. In doing so, Sørensen discussed the idea that play should not be seen as a didactic activity promoting established aesthetic values. Instead, play could be seen as an anti-aesthetic practice and, consequently, it could take place in anti-aesthetic places, such as junkyards and other leftover sites. Similar approaches were pursued by the British landscape architect Lady Allen of Hurtwood who worked on the idea of establishing playgrounds in post-war bomb sites and the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck who from 1947 to 1978 worked on converting more than 700 leftover sites in Amsterdam into playgrounds, while in 1960s the Greek architect Dimitris Pikionis evolved the idea of the junk playground by using humble found and natural materials in his playground at Philothei, Athens.
The article examines the relation of the post-war rising interest in playground design with the long-lasting discussion about the role of play. It mainly focuses on the junk playground as a genre that managed to incorporate play in post-war urban environments and to highlight the presence of children in the city. The article links the idea of the junk playground with the discussion about play and its anti-aesthetic qualities, which also took place during this transition of the western societies from a pre-war to a post-war condition.
informa Issue #13 ‘Urban Disruptors’, 2020
During the 1970s and 1980s, emerged a second wave of architectural criticism to Modernism related... more During the 1970s and 1980s, emerged a second wave of architectural criticism to Modernism related with the global oil and fiscal crises of the period. This criticism, targeting the issues of the ongoing urbanization, the unlimited spending of resources and the environmental degradation rendered the fragmentation of cities a critical problem for social coherence. In this second period, leftover sites were rediscovered and appeared as a favorite subject in narrative arts. Literature and cinema explored the lyrical role of such sites as allegories of alternative forms of urban life, romantic forms of unlawfulness, and the re-establishment of the senses or the rediscovery of lost identities. In these cases, leftover sites in cities appear as a more complicated phenomenon, one that had already been established and had evolved in cities for more than four decades. Leftover sites became more internalized and they were used to project the profound psychological concerns of the contemporary inhabitants of the city, such as the experience of a lost identity in the city, the shattering of social coherence of urban life, the overwhelming presence of dominant patterns of use in the city, or the city’s problematic relation with nature. This article examines the ways that various narrative artistic projects from cinema and literature refer to the presence of the leftover sites in cities. It investigates the way that these artistic projects can form a consistent narrative about alternative forms
of urban life, one that exists in parallel to the dominant patterns of use of the city. The article also aims to contribute to the discussion on the role that artistic narratives can play in transcending architectural and urban design stereotypes in acknowledging, and documenting the leftover sites and possibly re-introducing them in the urban environment.
The Site Magazine, #35, Borders, 2016
The state of ‘Being a Border’ [1] The modern story of Jerusalem is a story of borders. In this ar... more The state of ‘Being a Border’ [1] The modern story of Jerusalem is a story of borders. In this article, borders are investigated not as a division, but as a spatial structure of negotiation. This project proposes borders that would not divide space into two distinct and sovereign states, but rather would have to connect, to bring together two different communities in a single homeland. As Michael Sorkin describes: ‘Such a condominium would form a ‘third state’ defined as the territory of cooperation between Israel and Palestine‘ This ‘Third State,’ which lays at the heart of the narrative offered in this project, is what we need to project in architectural projects and visions. But few have tried to formulate its basic dimensions. What would the spatial characteristics of a ‘Third State’ be? What forms would its public spaces take? How it would realize a status of a coexistence of singularities in space? This project tries to answer these questions. The ‘New Zidonians’ is a narrative and a project of a Jerusalem’s imagined future. This future forms neither a vision nor a nightmare. It rather tries to imagine a future of a Jerusalem that has accepted its differential character and permit a space were the differences would coexist in an immanent relationship. [1] A term used by Andre Green
Edinburgh Architecture Research (EAR) journal, ,Methodologies for Sustainable Projects, vol.33, 2013, 2013
The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in ar... more The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in architectural literature as design strategy for shrinking urban environments. Within a contemporary context of increasing co-existence of manmade and natural environments in expanding metropolitan areas, archipelago becomes a pertinent strategy with sustainable potentials. With this article, we aim to introduce possible ways of using this strategy in natural contexts, which are gradually becoming part of expanding urban agglomeration areas. We go on further to talk about an 'archipelago à la carte' where the various users can shape their own archipelagos across natural and artificial environments and yet retain amongst them a common ground. The case study is the proposal for the Liopetri Fishing Harbour and Park in Cyprus, which was submitted by our team, (Ioannou, Papastergiou, Stratis) and was awarded the 3d prize in a two stage architectural competition. The article is part of a...
'Revisit', Customizing Tourism, 13th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Cyprus National Participation , 2012
Conference Presentations by Christos Papastergiou
TFYD 2019 Initiations – Practices of Teaching 1st Year Design in Architecture, 2019
The paper discusses the adaptation of the 'pretend play' or 'role-playing' concept as investigate... more The paper discusses the adaptation of the 'pretend play' or 'role-playing' concept as investigated in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology in the teaching of the first year architecture design studios. It specifically uses the work produced in the second semester of the first year design studio in the UCy School of Architecture, taught by Christiana Ioannou and Christos Papastergiou between the years 2014 and 2017. The studio asked for the design of a small workshop for an imaginary user, in the old city of Nicosia. In the paper we discuss the ways in which the studio incorporated the processes of the pretend-play in the various stages of the development of the students' projects and with this the various stages of their initiation in architectural design as first-year students. The research question that the paper pursues is how the pretend play method can affect the students in understanding the context of the project and the various ways in adopting the 'as found' approach that has been developed by middle 20th century architects and critical theorists. The paper seeks to contribute to the discussion about a project-based education of the architect that is founded on the idiosyncratic attributes of each student, does not convey a specific packet of knowledge, but invests in the deconstruction of stereotypes and construction on the distinct ability of each student to build his/her language about architectural design.
FOOTPRINT Delft Architecture Theory Journal
In this article I introduce the alien view of the traveller, the view from outside, as presented ... more In this article I introduce the alien view of the traveller, the view from outside, as presented in a number of travel narratives describing the type of the domestic enclosed garden in Nicosia. I focus on three books published between the fourteenth and twentieth century, and do a comparative analysis of the narratives based on the information they provide about Nicosian gardens. I investigate how this knowledge can be used to develop design strategies for gardens as a typology in architectural and urban design. As a demonstration, I discuss the project ‘Nicosian Garden Network’, which uses the historically iconic element of the garden and its narrated spatial qualities as an answer to the problem of urban fragmentation and the presence of a large number of unused plots in the city of Nicosia. The project incorporates unused sites of different sizes into a network of shared semi-public urban spaces that could reconnect the landscape, create conditions of sharing by the different communities on a daily basis, and regain its iconic presence in the contemporary city. The article aims to contribute to the discussion about ways in which travelogues, guides and other forms of travel literature can construct a field of knowledge about vernacular architecture and implement contemporary approaches to architectural design.
From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke ... more From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke Louis Savator of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg Royal family who visited Cyprus in 1873, recorded travelogues repeatedly refer to the gardens of Nicosia as an identifying element of the city. Either in the form of productive orchards during the Lusignan Era, a compound of exotic plants and animals during the Venetian Rule or an enclosed- mystical domestic space with cisterns and small hammams during the Ottoman Rule, gardens hidden at the rear of the house and aside of the daily domestic routines, have claimed their historical place in the Cypriot capital city as heterotopic islands referring mainly to the stimulation of senses. By looking at historical documents and surviving historical gardens such as that of the Dragoman Kornesios, the article wants to highlight the ‘rear’ placement of this architectural element that also reflects its ‘rear’ function. The garden becomes the part of...
The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in ar... more The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in architectural literature as design strategy for shrinking urban environments. Within a contemporary context of increasing co-existence of manmade and natural environments in expanding metropolitan areas, archipelago becomes a pertinent strategy with sustainable potentials. With this article, we aim to introduce possible ways of using this strategy in natural contexts, which are gradually becoming part of expanding urban agglomeration areas. We go on further to talk about an ‘archipelago à la carte’ where the various users can shape their own archipelagos across natural and artificial environments and yet retain amongst them a common ground. The case study is the proposal for the Liopetri Fishing Harbour and Park in Cyprus, which was submitted by our team, (Ioannou, Papastergiou, Stratis) and was awarded the 3d prize in a two stage architectural competition. The article is part of a researc...
archimaera, 2021
From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke ... more From Strabo, the Greek geographer who visited Cyprus in the first Century BC, until the Archduke Louis Savator of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg Royal family who visited Cyprus in 1873, recorded travelogues repeatedly refer to the gardens of Nicosia as an identifying element of the city. Either in the form of productive orchards during the Lusignan Era, a compound of exotic plants and animals during the Venetian Rule or an enclosed- mystical domestic space with cisterns and small hammams during the Ottoman Rule, gardens hidden at the rear of the house and aside of the daily domestic routines, have claimed their historical place in the Cypriot capital city as heterotopic islands referring mainly to the stimulation of senses. By looking at historical documents and surviving historical gardens such as that of the Dragoman Kornesios, the article wants to highlight the ‘rear’ placement of this architectural element that also reflects its ‘rear’ function. The garden becomes the part of the domestic space that hosts, protects and cultivates all the informal activities of the domestic life. The purpose of this article is to explore the ‘rear’ function of the domestic gardens of Nicosia in their historical context, as well as investigate its role as an element that still survives today and identifies the relation of architecture with the place, possibly bearing possibilities of resistance to cultural homogenisation.
studies in History and Theory of Architecture, 2021
By introducing the idea of the ‘Junk Playground’, the Danish landscape architect Carl Theodor Sør... more By introducing the idea of the ‘Junk Playground’, the Danish landscape architect Carl Theodor Sørensen understood play as an ‘anti-aesthetic’ activity. Sørensen came up with the idea of the junk playground by observing the free play of children in post-war junkyards and bombsites and their imaginative use of disposed objects found on site. He believed that such a playground could promote an anti-aesthetic quality as an important quality of free play. In doing so, Sørensen discussed the idea that play should not be seen as a didactic activity promoting established aesthetic values. Instead, play could be seen as an anti-aesthetic practice and, consequently, it could take place in anti-aesthetic places, such as junkyards and other leftover sites. Similar approaches were pursued by the British landscape architect Lady Allen of Hurtwood who worked on the idea of establishing playgrounds in post-war bomb sites and the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck who from 1947 to 1978 worked on converting more than 700 leftover sites in Amsterdam into playgrounds, while in 1960s the Greek architect Dimitris Pikionis evolved the idea of the junk playground by using humble found and natural materials in his playground at Philothei, Athens.
The article examines the relation of the post-war rising interest in playground design with the long-lasting discussion about the role of play. It mainly focuses on the junk playground as a genre that managed to incorporate play in post-war urban environments and to highlight the presence of children in the city. The article links the idea of the junk playground with the discussion about play and its anti-aesthetic qualities, which also took place during this transition of the western societies from a pre-war to a post-war condition.
informa Issue #13 ‘Urban Disruptors’, 2020
During the 1970s and 1980s, emerged a second wave of architectural criticism to Modernism related... more During the 1970s and 1980s, emerged a second wave of architectural criticism to Modernism related with the global oil and fiscal crises of the period. This criticism, targeting the issues of the ongoing urbanization, the unlimited spending of resources and the environmental degradation rendered the fragmentation of cities a critical problem for social coherence. In this second period, leftover sites were rediscovered and appeared as a favorite subject in narrative arts. Literature and cinema explored the lyrical role of such sites as allegories of alternative forms of urban life, romantic forms of unlawfulness, and the re-establishment of the senses or the rediscovery of lost identities. In these cases, leftover sites in cities appear as a more complicated phenomenon, one that had already been established and had evolved in cities for more than four decades. Leftover sites became more internalized and they were used to project the profound psychological concerns of the contemporary inhabitants of the city, such as the experience of a lost identity in the city, the shattering of social coherence of urban life, the overwhelming presence of dominant patterns of use in the city, or the city’s problematic relation with nature. This article examines the ways that various narrative artistic projects from cinema and literature refer to the presence of the leftover sites in cities. It investigates the way that these artistic projects can form a consistent narrative about alternative forms
of urban life, one that exists in parallel to the dominant patterns of use of the city. The article also aims to contribute to the discussion on the role that artistic narratives can play in transcending architectural and urban design stereotypes in acknowledging, and documenting the leftover sites and possibly re-introducing them in the urban environment.
The Site Magazine, #35, Borders, 2016
The state of ‘Being a Border’ [1] The modern story of Jerusalem is a story of borders. In this ar... more The state of ‘Being a Border’ [1] The modern story of Jerusalem is a story of borders. In this article, borders are investigated not as a division, but as a spatial structure of negotiation. This project proposes borders that would not divide space into two distinct and sovereign states, but rather would have to connect, to bring together two different communities in a single homeland. As Michael Sorkin describes: ‘Such a condominium would form a ‘third state’ defined as the territory of cooperation between Israel and Palestine‘ This ‘Third State,’ which lays at the heart of the narrative offered in this project, is what we need to project in architectural projects and visions. But few have tried to formulate its basic dimensions. What would the spatial characteristics of a ‘Third State’ be? What forms would its public spaces take? How it would realize a status of a coexistence of singularities in space? This project tries to answer these questions. The ‘New Zidonians’ is a narrative and a project of a Jerusalem’s imagined future. This future forms neither a vision nor a nightmare. It rather tries to imagine a future of a Jerusalem that has accepted its differential character and permit a space were the differences would coexist in an immanent relationship. [1] A term used by Andre Green
Edinburgh Architecture Research (EAR) journal, ,Methodologies for Sustainable Projects, vol.33, 2013, 2013
The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in ar... more The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in architectural literature as design strategy for shrinking urban environments. Within a contemporary context of increasing co-existence of manmade and natural environments in expanding metropolitan areas, archipelago becomes a pertinent strategy with sustainable potentials. With this article, we aim to introduce possible ways of using this strategy in natural contexts, which are gradually becoming part of expanding urban agglomeration areas. We go on further to talk about an 'archipelago à la carte' where the various users can shape their own archipelagos across natural and artificial environments and yet retain amongst them a common ground. The case study is the proposal for the Liopetri Fishing Harbour and Park in Cyprus, which was submitted by our team, (Ioannou, Papastergiou, Stratis) and was awarded the 3d prize in a two stage architectural competition. The article is part of a...
'Revisit', Customizing Tourism, 13th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Cyprus National Participation , 2012
TFYD 2019 Initiations – Practices of Teaching 1st Year Design in Architecture, 2019
The paper discusses the adaptation of the 'pretend play' or 'role-playing' concept as investigate... more The paper discusses the adaptation of the 'pretend play' or 'role-playing' concept as investigated in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology in the teaching of the first year architecture design studios. It specifically uses the work produced in the second semester of the first year design studio in the UCy School of Architecture, taught by Christiana Ioannou and Christos Papastergiou between the years 2014 and 2017. The studio asked for the design of a small workshop for an imaginary user, in the old city of Nicosia. In the paper we discuss the ways in which the studio incorporated the processes of the pretend-play in the various stages of the development of the students' projects and with this the various stages of their initiation in architectural design as first-year students. The research question that the paper pursues is how the pretend play method can affect the students in understanding the context of the project and the various ways in adopting the 'as found' approach that has been developed by middle 20th century architects and critical theorists. The paper seeks to contribute to the discussion about a project-based education of the architect that is founded on the idiosyncratic attributes of each student, does not convey a specific packet of knowledge, but invests in the deconstruction of stereotypes and construction on the distinct ability of each student to build his/her language about architectural design.