Concept, Design and Award in Architectural Competition
The brief consists of offices for several civil services (registry, cleaning, recycling, building permits), mayor and government spaces as well as amphitheater, café, parking for 350 cars and design of the entry - Public Square. The basic design parameter was the building site itself which was of distorted geometry and had a huge 10m height difference in one corner.
The main idea is derived from the traditional Epirus Architecture: the building, no matter how big it must big it has to be, must be built as a single volume and can’t be “broken” into several smaller masses connected via open air routes.
It is difficult to integrate such a huge building mass in a plot where on the one hand one has to face thick urban densities and on the other a couple of small one storey buildings in a tiny park, relics from the city’s Ottoman past. With this in mind the Town Hall sticks its volume next to the urban, making way for the past to shine. A central atrium connects two centrifugal axes. All movement, stairs, elevators and main corridors are placed around this atrium. On the lower floors are placed the offices with more public access, while the upper areas are reserved for the mayoral and opposition needs. A wide public square connects the building with the two Ottoman buildings opposite, which were the finishing point of an important landscape project which was by then under construction: a walkway connecting the main city landmarks.
Traditional Architecture gave not only the idea for the building plan but for its form as well: the upper floor protrudes from the rest, is constructed of lighter material and has wider openings from them. In the new Ioannina Town Hall, the upper floor is made out of metal, while the others, made out of concrete, are clad in stone, a material reminiscent of the past yet used in a manner profoundly contemporary.
In collaboration with V.Mountzouri, K.Mitsoni, P.Papadimatos - blueprints and pics from personal archive
Client: Ioannina City