Athens, Model City: AREA

Amid the current accumulation of planetary crises – climate, societal, political and otherwise – the previous divisions between private and public space have been supplanted by a new global condition that E Coccia refers to as 'absolute interiority'. While the entire planet has become a home, the city itself emerges as an arena of domestic practices whereby 'collectivity' is perceived not so much as a question of public space but as an issue of shared resources and, ultimately, cohabitation. To live collectively is, like Claude Levi-Strauss’s figure of the bricoleur, to work from existing materials and artefacts in a perpetual process of recomposing the domestic order that surrounds us. At stake is the logic of productive agency over material consumption, therapeutic repetition instead of transactional progress, ars combinatoria rather than linear development, perpetual motion as opposed to teleology, intentionality in place of determinism, generative thought over analysis, and the diagram rather than the plan. Against this backdrop, AREA, Architecture Research Athens, will address the contemporary city as both 'context' and 'method' by presenting a series of projects that draw from Athens as a laboratory for design diplomacy. AREA (Architecture Research Athens) is a professional design practice established in 2006 by architects S. Daouti, G. Mitroulias and M. Raftopoulos, combining academic and professional experience in Greece, France, the Netherlands and the U.S. Exploring the relationship between culture, form and context, AREA’s work seeks to question the role of the architect in relation to design methodologies, often within the context of participatory practices. Among numerous awards, AREA’s built projects have been among Greece’s official nominations for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017 and 2021. In 2022, they were shortlisted for the AR Emerging Awards (UK) among 16 creative offices worldwide and have received recognition from the Record Houses Awards (USA), Architectural Review House Awards (UK), and DOMa Awards (GR). In addition to work published in Europe, Asia and North America, AREA’s theoretical interests have been presented in international exhibitions including Made in Athens at the Greek Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2012), Adhocracy Athens (2015, Athens) and Tomorrows: Urban Fictions for Possible Futures (2017, Athens; 2019, Nantes). AREA teaches architecture at the University of Thessaly Department of Architecture and has taught at universities throughout Greece. In 2026, AREA was a Dean’s Visiting Professor at Columbia University GSAPP.