VOLOS CULTURAL BUILDING
Volos is a medium-sized city (150,000 inhabitants) in central Greece, at the foot of Mount Pelion and on the Pagasiticos Gulf in the Aegean basin. The Volos Cultural Building will be built with private sponsorship and EU funds.
Building Program The building, with a total area of 650 m2, will be built on a plot of 1000 m2 in the wider center of Volos, near the seaside park to meet the cultural needs of the city, aimed at the youth by hosting a variety of activities to develop artistic skills and applications (ceramics, theater, production of recordings and digital applications). In the design of the proposed
building, all the activities of the program are articulated around an open library, in the center of the building which is developed in height on three levels. A spiraling movement in the library leads to the individual spaces of the program and ends on the fourth level in a periodical exhibition space with development in the indoor and outdoor space on the terrace of the building.
Tripartition structure The building is inscribed in a solid cubic shape with dimensions of 16X16X16m, ending in a gabled roof. The structure of the building is based on the tripartition of the floor plan. Two lateral wings, each 4m wide, host the servicing spaces and the middle space supported by the sides hosts the main uses for the building’s users (serviced space). The tripartition of the structure is also clearly expressed by the use of materials. The side wings are made of reinforced concrete throughout their height and the central part, the roof of the building, is made of metal construction, which joins the wings like a bridge. The prevalence of wood in the interior creates a wooden box, an ark for storing books.
Vesture Externally the shell is completely covered by a film of ceramic elements that are sometimes solid and sometimes perforated for the ventilation and lighting of the building, in a logic of passive bioclimatic function of its porous structure.