Starting from Metaxourgeio‘s high concentration of empty buildings and unused open spaces, we suggest an intervention that deals with the lack of affordable housing. Three general strategies were developed for the neighborhood in order to solve the housing shortage. These base on the different building typologies and their related issues. For the implementation of the general strategies we concentrate on a specific area, considering it pivotal for the neighborhood: the so-called ‚strip’ in the middle of a strongly segregated neighborhood: this area can work as threshold for Metaxourgeio, becoming a hotspot for the community. It hosts already important public buildings and public open spaces. Nevertheless, the implementation of the generic strategies itself causes a small-scale impact.
In order to strengthen the community, to bring people from Metaxourgeio together and also attract people from the outside, we need catalysts that provoke to this bigger impact. The first catalyst is a food market, the second a public library. Both the buildings are placed on crucial spots inside the strip: the one is hosted in an empty abandoned concrete structure facing the main square, the other is a new construction replacing an abandoned hospital next to the important axis of Piraeus street. Focusing on the open space, its development on the strip can empower the weak connection between the northern areas of Athens to its historical centre. Thus, we design four areas which aim to work complementary offering different open-space qualities to Metaxourgeio and its surroundings.
