SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF CRETE

A natural open amphitheatre/square is the point of reference for the various activities related with teaching spaces: spaces in which students and instructors meet. Departments and faculty sections develop around this square – following a radial pattern. Departments include: the Pedagogic Department of Primary Education (1), the Pedagogic Department of Pre-primary Education (2), the Department of History, the Department of Archaeology and the Department of Philology.

We developed a vocabulary of different spaces relating to the various operations within each department: administration offices, teaching staff offices, departmental meeting room combined with the necessary labs, seminar rooms and faculty meeting room. The overall plan was based on a repetition of these elements, combined in the case of each of the five departments in different ways: it accurately expressed and fulfilled the requirements of the project we had originally been assigned and constituted a precise articulation in terms of space of then recently approved legislation regarding the operation of higher education institutions across the country. Teaching rooms shared a plan repeated ten times with slight variations and the number of students they were meant to hold was specified by law.

The five departments and their respective open spaces stand as independent units; are signaled by the buildings housing the meeting rooms of each Department and covered by a raised polygonal roof. The character of the campus structure is open, wholly integrated into the surrounding landscape and evoking a sense of reverence for the ancient trees standing in the area. Campus life develops in the complexs closed and open-air spaces: squares and roads that are ideal for meetings and strolls and that allude to various associations between the practice of philosophy and the leisurely walk; associations that are quite familiar in the Greek context.

A66: SA, DA, B. Babalou, A. Noukakis, Th. Fotiou