Design Studio Green Porosity Athens

Athens is largely defined by polykatoikia: dense post-war apartment blocks that enabled rapid urban growth but today exacerbate heat stress, social fragmentation, and environmental vulnerability. Once praised by Kenneth Frampton as a successful modern city typology, this fabric now faces urgent climatic and ecological challenges.

This studio explores how the modern city can be carefully updated rather than replaced. Focusing on the urban block as a strategic scale, we will investigate how small, precise reductions of built mass and the introduction of new green porosity can significantly improve microclimate, shared space, and urban livability—without large public investment.

Working within Athens’ fragmented ownership structure and existing grid, the studio develops strategies for new inner passages, courtyards, and gardens. The aim is to construct an updated “Nolli map” for the twenty-first century: a resilient, permeable, and climate-adapted Athens emerging from within its modern fabric.

The course will be held in English.