The Ecological Semiotics of Air Pollution and Heat in Athens (original) (raw)
2023, Taking Action Transforming Athens’ Urban Landscapes
In this paper I will weave together a number of different stories, all of which circulate around and through the semio-ecological entity known as Αθηνα. Some of these stories concern the changing cli-mate and environment of the city of Athens, its bioregion and geo-political context. Other stories concern the changing lives of people who live there. As we shall see, these interacting changes present ever more significant – and potentially existential – challenges to the city and its inhabitants. One central story for us concerns the setting out of a specific environmental architecture design research project. Conceptually organised around The Ecological Semiotics of Air Pollution and Heat in Athens, and practically organised around A New Tower of Winds, this is an action-research-based design process which explores the potential for a network of urban passive-energy, evaporative-cooling structures to reduce the ex-tremes of heat and pollution that the airs of Αθηνα will increasingly be forced to express. I welcome some recent initiatives, statements and documents produced by Athens’ former Chief Heat Officer (CHO) and Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) Eleni Myrivili and Athens’ current CHO and CRO Elissavet Bargianni, and in particular, I offer this paper, and the associated design research projects outlined within, as a contribution to the dialogue initiated by the Athens Resi-lience Strategy for 2030 (City of Athens, 2017), and recent initiatives such as #coolathens.Ecological SemioticsWhat does it mean to talk about a city as a semio-ecological entity? At stake in this claim is a much bigger claim: that there exist all kinds of non-human and more-than-human ecological intelligences or eco-mental systems...
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