The primary purpose was to design a building with strong elements of recognition and awareness of spatial relationships and to reveal them through a series of structures with qualities of different degrees of transparency, materiality and textures. Stratification of structures of different degrees of accessibility and extroversion as well as the treatment of landscape as a continuous interconnection of open and closed spaces are the main synthetic tools that intertwine and form spatial relations.

The goal in an urban level is to generate new urban flows and pedestrian paths that connect to existing public networks of the neighborhood, extend through our site and connect to important nodes of activities both in the adjacent area and within the new development

The manipulation and extension of the existing topography was always in dialogue with the public paths and stasis that it created, in order to generate an organic connection and a continuous flow between the diverse programme of the brief, and at the same time become the missing piece of the city scale puzzle, managing to join a totally disconnected urban tissue.  

A solid base, the ‘plinth’ extended from the topography, three ‘hovering volumes’ in a free arrangement hosting laboratories and offices, a ‘plateaux – void’ created between the plinth and the volumes taking the role of the entrance level and the ‘free-standing wooden volumes’ hosting the educational programme (interior amphitheatre, researchers’ library) comprise the visible parts of the building of the Institute. Strategically located atriums ‘gardens-patios’ act as a connecting element, allowing for spaces and functions to either physically or visually associate to each other.

The stands of the open-air amphitheatre are embraced by an ‘artificial hill’, that commence from the existing hill along the west edge of the new plot and wraps around the edge of the peripheral newly proposed road, thus generating a buffer, a green threshold between the new public street and the performance space while at the same time acting as a unifying element of the overall configuration.

The hill has a dual role, it creates a sheltered environment for the open-air amphitheatre while simultaneously provides a public green path, an alternative public flow for the Institute, the Open Theatre and the nearby neighborhood.

The sculptured base of the building, plinth and the stands of the open-air amphitheater are understood as the most solid sections of the project while, the three upper floors with laboratories and offices are designed in a more freestanding configuration.

The relationship between function and materiality is perceived through structures with different transparency and materiality, relating to the degree of accessibility and introversion of the space, creating a coherence and continuity in the spaces.