VOLOS CULTURAL BUILDING

We live in an era where it has become clear that environmental conditions and social and cultural life are closely related and interconnected. A sustainable environment promotes social life and it is the responsibility of architecture to build such sustainable environments, especially the responsibility of the architecture of public space. The proposal for the “New Multipurpose Social Center of the Municipality of Volos” is an architectural proposal that on the one hand creates a building with characteristics of sustainable and bioclimatic architecture and on the other hand attempts to promote culture in the social life of the city, especially for its younger citizens. Also, the sustainable design of the building attempts to make the city more outgoing, as the “Multipurpose Center” can be a pole of attraction for activities with a wider impact on the national territory and internationally.

The building is designed as an ark that will contain and host people, books, activities, artworks around books and reading, as well as new technologies related to reading, writing, cultural interaction, crafts and the production of material objects, performing arts, as well as sound and music production, practices particularly dear to young people and their social environments and networks. The idea is to be able to host a comprehensive experience of cultural life and entertainment for the duration of the whole day with parallel forms of activity.

The solid form of the building on the outside aims to emphasize its public, emblematic character. It is inspired by the pre-war mainly industrial architecture of Volos, the mixed constructions of bricks and metal frame. Also, although solid, the building is completely porous to maximize and optimize ventilation, transparency, shading and in general the passive bioclimatic function of the building. The brick facades reduce the environmental footprint and in relation to the extensive use of wood inside the building, a climate of intimacy of materials and spaces is created. For the interior of the building, the main intention is to be perceived as a single space both horizontally and along the height of the building. The intention is to increase sociability, increase interfaces and communication between the users of the building.

It is a cube with dimensions of sixteen by sixteen meters in plan and approximately the same height. Its internal structure is based on a tripartite division of the plan into a central and two side aisles, in the ancient typology of the basilica, such as, for example, the emblematic church of Agios Konstantinos in Volos, with architect A. Zachos. The two side “aisles” mainly accommodate auxiliary uses (toilet rooms, horizontal and vertical movement, bookshelves) while the central aisle is a single and open space both horizontally and vertically. It is there that the common activities within the building are concentrated, from reading to the interface, the gatherings of the public (ground floor) but also the expansion of the communal activity to the attic and the roofs of the building.

From a construction point of view, the two side aisles will be made of reinforced concrete while the central aisle will be a metal structure that will bridge the openings between the two side wings. This is a typology of trimerization with a mixed construction based on its basic geometries resulting from the trimerization of the square.

The entire configuration of the central space is made with the combination of metal load-bearing elements (beams, columns) and wooden elements (floors, parapets, stairs, bookcases, furniture). The idea of ​​an ark returns to the materials as we would like the feeling for the user of the space to be the feeling of being inside a large piece of furniture, inside a wooden box.