Concept, Design, Construction and Budget Issues

The public square was constructed in an area of Meli, in the small town of Megara, on the outskirts of Athens. Its inhabitants derive from Minor Asia refugee families, who came to Greece in 1922 following a violent exile. The goal was to design a low budget-low maintenance Public Square in an L-shaped block of around 1.000 sq.m. The main idea is a singular concrete ribbon which runs up and down the site, submerging into a small football square. The football area is submerged from the surrounding streets and is surrounded by a concrete bench. On its edge runs a poem engraving about the lost homelands of the past. It is an extract from the poem “Mithistorima” by the Nobel Prize winner Greek poet G. Seferis who was also of Minor Asian origin and had come to Greece as a refugee. Construction started in 2004 and finished after a long stop in 2009.

In collaboration with Y.Orfanos and V.Tzioga - blueprints and built pics from personal archive