Kassandras
Kassandras is a project started by Matthew Pratt, Thanassis Benos-Palmer, Benoît Durandin and Anne Davidian. As its site describes :
KASSANDRAS exists as a distinct and potential found space in the Athenian landscape of abandoned construction sites and derelict buildings. Located in the Votanikos district, it inhabits a skeletal concrete structure acting as a laboratory of research in architectural prototyping and experimentation.
Made up of a workshop and a studio/event space, its top three floors lack most of their walls. An integrated approach to design and making is adopted, focusing on the development of design strategies and creative processes. KASSANDRAS deliberates on concepts of temporality and flux, proposing a long-term ephemeral architecture.
KASSANDRAS is a creation of its evolving environment. It occupies a single module in the urban space-frame topography of Athens and establishes a dialectic between a malleable formal typology and integrated social connectivity. The typical concrete space-frame, characterizing most Greek cities, is viewed as an ideal environment – a breeding ground – for contemporary multi-disciplinary experimentation and collaboration; it is repeatable and distinctive; emblematic and discreet; rigid and transformable; a point of reference and a point of departure. It is a case-specific methodological playground.
KASSANDRAS adopts a role as space-activator by concentrating a spectrum of local and international forces from the fields of architecture, art, design, urbanism, technology, agriculture among others. It depends on the diversity of individuals and the immersion in community. This is founded on the belief that creative agency is facilitated by communication, the transfer of knowledge and the implementation of expertise within a collaborative structure.
Their projects, contain mapping projects (map-a), modular consructions for festivals and art events, data anlysis on maps of the city and projects of retaking and reusing vacant urban space. Their propositions cover a series of urban problems, while offering an affordable and possible proposition, in order to cover needs from the different social groups involved.
Reference Projects
http://kassandras.org/project/unlearning-from-athens
http://kassandras.org/project/syros-international-film-festival