Poly-commons

Fokionos Negri street has always been the most important and liveliest public space of the Kypseli district. Crossed by the Levidi stream until the 1930’s, it was then turned into a boulevard and became the center of upper-class Athens. Today Fokionos Negri str is a green, vivid and inclusive place. It is undoubtedly the backbone of the social life of the Kypseli district. However, the interventions carried out in the last decades on the pedestrian street combined with unplanned additions of urban equipment produce discontinuities, visual noise and often impede the free movement. To this patchwork of intervention, we will not add a new layer but rather remove what is not functional.The aim is to make the most out of the spatial qualities of Fokionos Negri and to improve the streetscape. After an elaborate counting of the soft surfaces, the trees, the fountains, and of all urban equipment (lighting, bins, benches), we intervene using a set of 4+1 actions: REMOVE, REPURPOSE, REGULATE, REPLACE and finally, ADD. Thus, we create a toolbox of horizontal solutions that apply in similar urban environments.


© Eleni Katsiampi, Sonia Tsakni