Establishing a Narrative | Garbage in Athens

Looking at the news this week in Athens and trying to better understand why the economy is falling apart, I found a common theme in the garbage conditions in Athens and the consistent strikes that result in pile-ups of garbage throughout the city. What had been a consistent remark in my project scheme was that the idea of a new datum was great and the potential of the project could be seen, but it urgently needed a context through which to frame a narrative. With this in mind, I started to investigate further into garbage cities and the vicious cycle of garbage within Athens. In Athens, there is only one landfill and until recently there were no recycling schemes. The landfill at Ana Lioisia is well past its capacity and urgent calls for new landfills are in place, but are constantly placed on hold because of strikes by locals. Could I create a city within a city that solves the garbage epidemic? 

Depicting the Scene

Trying to move into more detail, I created a study model of what this "new layer" within the city would look like. I tried to capture how the existing ruins and street level in Athens would interact with my new intervention of an elevated walkway and new level in the sky.

Parti Diagram

Having re-established the direction I wanted my project to take, I started to re-assess the site of my project. Was it about Gerani or did it operate at a larger scale across the urban sprawl of the city?  I looked at two options - the first a section from Omonoia Square up to the Akropoli and the second a section from Lycabettus Hill up to the Akropoli. The section I settled on was the one from Omonoia Square up to the Akropoli as it included the historical core of the city of Athens, and had a large variety in the conditions of poverty and character of each neighborhood.

The parti diagram above shows where I took the section cut and how I started to diagram out how a new datum would start to create different "zones" within the city. 

Underground Cities | Returning to the "Ground Zero" Narrative

After receiving feedback from the crits, I found myself a bit confused on which path I really wanted my project to take. Was it really about these worlds in the sky or was it about more than just the rooftop level? I looked back at my work and re-assessed where my interests lie, finding myself drawn back to the notion of 'choosing a ground zero.' The notion of a ground zero meant there could be an underground, an aboveground, and a new datum within the project; each of which are unique but also linked together. Ground Zero also seemed like an appropriate phrase as it could symbolize the type of turmoil that Athens is currently experiencing as it slips into becoming a third-world country.

With this in mind, I started to look at cities that had created new datum lines and existed underground. The most prominent example I looked at was Seattle, Washington on the north-western coast of the United States. Seattle had a great fire in 1889 in which several blocks of the city were burnt down. Rather than try to rebuild what had already been damaged, Seattle decided to take a fresh start by creating a new datum at the second level. At first, street access required moving via ladders between the original street level and the new one; but eventually the entire street level had moved to the second level and today the original "underground city" remains as a hidden gem. If interested, you can also find more about underground cities by watching History Channel Cities of the Underworld.

Washington DC, Underground Tunnels

Proposed Tunnels Under Amsterdam Canals