ON ARCHITECTURE
— PHILOSOPHY OF
ARCHITECTURE
10th International Conference and Exhibition
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Gallery of Science and Technology
Belgrade, Serbia
Polyxeni Mantzou, KEYNOTER
Polyxeni Mantzou is a Professor of Architectural Design and New Technologies at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. Her work combines architectural projects, both edificatory and urban and the research on the use of digital media in architectural design.
Meta-typologies
Abstract
The post-era in which we are living is surprising and unpredictable, full of transformations, permutations and shifts. Modern rigid categories and strict architectural typologies are succumbing under the influence of an apparently more elusive, vague and open-ended world. The premodern world of the past, where control was limited and humanity was not definitely separated from its surroundings, led to the later modern world, where humanity objectified the world and established its sovereignty, by controlling, dissecting and organizing it in categories and typologies. Nowadays, in the post-era, hybrids, mixtures and crossings regenerate our conception and our positioning in the world.
This conversion comes as a result of the advances and proliferation of digital technologies, which reinvent our relation to the world and, consequently, create new opportunities for architecture, inasmuch as theory, research and practice. Embedded digital technologies can extend both our thinking and our realities and engender new forms of relating to our surroundings, which can now become interconnected, liquefied and entangled. Architectural design that integrates digital technologies can dissolve many of the limitations and constraints of the past and lead to looser and adaptable meta-typologies.
Urban space is a perfect testbed for the incorporation of digital technologies in architectural design. Three case-studies of emerging urban meta-typologies, one implemented and two projects, will be presented and analysed, from the perspective of the designer, in order to showcase how the use of digital technologies can enable the augmentation and intensification of the ways we relate to our urban environment.
Short Biography
Polyxeni Mantzou, architect (NTUA), MSc (ETSAM UPM), PhD (ETSAM) Post-Doc (NTUA), is a Professor of Architectural Design and New Technologies at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. She has broad experience in graduate and postgraduate education; member of numerous PhD Committees; invited professor in ETSAM (2016-7) and the Director of the Visual, Audiovisual and Electronic Applications LAB in DUTH.
Her work combines architectural projects, both edificatory and urban and the research on the use of digital media in architectural design. She has been awarded in architectural competitions; has published books and articles; has participated in national and european research projects.