Sustainability in Urban Space

ECOWEEK is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, with workshops in Greece, Turkey, Kosovo and Albania, with an ecological festival in Australia and a young designers’ competition in China.

ECOWEEK is also celebrating this year by bringing together 50 renowned architects, designers and environmental leaders, from the ECOWEEK conferences and workshops around the world, in a book on sustainable design and green architecture. Titled »ECOWEEK Book #1 – Writings from the ECOWEEK Workshops« the first book about the conference is marking the anniversary and will include projects and ideas by Bjarke Ingels, Kengo Kuma, Francis Kere, the late Francoise Jourda, Michael Sorkin, Gernot Minke, MVRDV, Ivan Harbour, Robert Swan, OBE and many more.
 
During the ECOWEEK in Thessaloniki, the participating students and young professionals will be encouraged to work in the public space, including schools, green open spaces, and the urban landscape. They will address issues of materials reuse and upcycling, and materials based on nanotechnology, to become active ingredients in a creative and innovative design process.
 
ECOWEEK is an opportunity for students and young professionals – primarily architects, designers, engineers, landscape architects and from other disciplines – to spend one week attending inspiring lectures and interactive design workshops held in real sites within the city fabric, led by local and international professionals, network with international peers and learn about sustainable design.
 
The conference is hosting in Thessaloniki professionals and students from Greece, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Kosovo, and Liechtenstein. Workshops

• W1: Norwegian architect Einard Jarmund will focus on design-build of spatial structure made out of wood;
• W2: Greek architects Prodromos Nikiforidis and Bernard Cuomo will focus on sustainable re-design for a school in Thessaloniki;
• W3: Dutch architects Michiel Smits and Gie Steenput will work with reclaimed materials for an urban gardening spot in the city;
• W4: Greek architect Natalia Pantelidou based in Denmark will address the void of Expo grounds and how to integrate this vast area into the city life;
• W5: German architect Thomas Kauertz and German engineer Anja Markwart will use newspapers as a building material to construct urban furniture in the urban context;
• W6: Liechtenstein architect Johannes Peter Steidl will address iconic design in a neglected urban space on 3rd September street in the city; 
• W7: Greek architects Urban Soul Project and Kosovo architect Argjira Krasniqi will address the social issue of homelessness as a design challenge for social justice; 
• W8: Greek architect Antonis Semertsidis workshop will design a ski resort development in Vasilitsa, near Ioannina, northern Greece;
• W9: Dutch architect and activist Martijn Schildkamp will introduce the art of upcycling using reclaimed and recycled materials;
• W10: Greek architects UbuPlan will focus on the area around the central train station in Thessaloniki; and
• W11: Greek architects 40.22 will design re-design one characteristic fragment of Thessaloniki’s urban wildscape.
• W12: Greek scientists from Demokritos Institute with architect from Greece – more details to be posted shortly.

 
The ECOWEEK workshop experimental projects range in scale and scope and explore a variety of places in the city. Some workshops involve design-build and some working with either reclaimed or innovative materials. ECOWEEK events include an architectural tour and sketching session in the city with landscape architect Lena Athanasiadou and architect Elias Messinas; films and an exhibition by the Post-Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). The opening and closing events are open and free to the public. Further information on www.ecoweek.org