Koum Kapi Waterfront
Chania, Crete




Installation at the EMST
Schisma Square
Description
The goal of the design proposal is to articulate the inspiring confrontation between culture (city) and nature (sea), to connect the artificial urban structure to the physical coast and to intensify the vitality and diversity of the interstitial space. We keep the uses, the users, the differentiation and heterogeneity of the building mass (old and new, small and larger scale, varied typologies), the inhabitants, the beach and the pier, and try to supplement with a plane of possibilities and unexpected situations without intervening on the urban fabric or the natural seascape. The plane of the project lies in between the sea and the city, after emptying the space from the random infrastructure and the traffic. The promenade’s sea front folds seaward to form different relations, proximities and linkages to the water. On the previously mentioned critical points the promenade extends to become an amphitheater, a chaise longue, a space for reading and working outdoors, a protection barrier, a frame, a seating bench, a level difference or whatever the imagination of the users prescribes. The surface is unfolding gradually down to reach the water level and folds back to create an enclosure towards the viewer of the city and the sea. The edge of the promenade towards the sea offers plentiful potential to the users in relation to the sea. The water is, thus, simultaneously an interior and an exterior, horizon and topography, separation and unity.






Design Team: | Agapi Proimou, Stella Pantelia, Eve Dova |
Virginia Malami, Evgenios Balasis | |
Status: | Study 2012 |