LARNACA AGORA 2011 -

Urban infastructure in negotiation: The scheme establishes a new urban condition that restructures the historical and commercial centre of Larnaka. The new municipal market square, market building and multi-storey parking are not conceived as autonomous objects in the urban landscape but as relational objects, containing a standardized and defined ‘void’.

Unfolding an urban panorama: The market square constitutes the re-formulation of the urban field as defined by its limits -the existing buildings and streets-, the new municipal market building and the oblique juxtaposition of the parking building. The three-dimensional folding of the square’s surface creates a dynamic vertical public space, defined by the field of the market, the ascending staircase and the programmed roof of the parking building. More than just an extension of the public square, the roof can host outdoor screenings, lectures, concerts, exhibitions and games, constituting a three dimensional public space: the unfolding of a unique urban panorama.

Beyond parking: The parking building becomes a landmark, nevertheless negotiates with its urban context through the chamfering of its edges as a clear gesture towards the surrounding buildings and their smaller scale. Thanks to the perforated copper-yellow cladding façade, day and night, the natural and the artificial lighting will transform the typical dark space of a garage into a space for exhibiting and promoting the ‘status symbol’ of the everydayness - the parked vehicles.

The passage, the stoa and the gate: The market building is defined by a ‘passage’ and a ‘stoa’ below a single roof, the folds and peaks of which correspond to the scale of the context and spatial particularities of a market. The municipal gallery is accommodated on the upper level along a circular route. Its double height section, the manageable qualities of the penetrating light and the dramatic relief of the roof establish a unique space for exhibiting art.

‘Cuprium aes’: The buildings are clad by a ‘filter’ of copper-yellow, perforated anodized aluminium panels, some fixed, some open-able, a reference to the colour and materiality of the Cyprus’s archetypal landmark: copper. At the parking building, the skin is ‘inflexible’ and protective, yet by being perforated allows the diffusion of natural and artificial.

At the municipal market building, the filter becomes skin and roof at the same time, a climatic moderator which corresponds to orientation and the alternating requirements for different qualities and quantities of natural light and ventilation.