Location: Kerameikos, Athens
Client: Private
State: 2008_Conceptual Design
Concept: Mini Max
“Kidcity” is a project that aims in creating a kids friendly environment that will be a discernable characteristic of the new neighborhood of Kerameikos.
The project evolves in different scales and typologies but shares a common question: “How can architecture with its configuration and form affect, facilitate and improve the development of physical and behavior aspects of a child ?”.
A first step to the answer was to describe a series of theoretical and practical proposals that could develop exploring the needs of the children and their parents and how can these be interpreted in programmatic and architectural scenarios. The outcome of these will create a source of ideas that will feed back to the project in two scales a. the building and b. the neighborhood.
The basic idea is that the building “Kinder-garden” becomes a mock – up of the city _ a kid city. The layout is organized in two main sections public and private creating areas of release and concentration. The configuration of the building offers an experience in small scale of the greater environment that the kid is going to live in the future. The morphological approach was based on smooth, soft, kid-friendly shapes.
The neighborhood similarly becomes an area where kid- friendly interventions are going plugged in. Installations, new typologies, street furniture are organized to operate according to kid’s behavior aspects and needs.
The project intensifies the importance of how city-neighborhoods can facilitate and the needs of a child and a parent.