Work

Nature and housing together

Athens is one of the densest cities in Europe and holds less than 1m2 of green space per resident today - 15x less than the WHO recommendation. The new Ellinikon development on the old airport site is a chance to address this. It looks to open up 6.2m square metres of land for the city with a mix of residential and commercial land use as well as green space.

An exciting aspect of the development is the generous allocation of blue-green spaces but the country park estate treatment does not offer enough in terms of species range and habitat to stimulate biodiversity and draw down carbon. What's more a 'towers in the park' approach to housing and urban planning employed here has been shown to be less supportive of communitites and nature overall, compared to a less designed approach and mid density housing.

We propose:

• Sectors where proposed towers are replaced by medium density 3-5 level mixed housing and commercial premises
• Throughfares, walls and roofs are dedicated to cultivation of local plant species like wild fig trees, pistachio and pomegranate trees, wild carnation, thyme, balm, savory and oregano. This will provide cooling benefits to homes, cleaner air and habitat to animals and insects.
• Existing airport buildings like the main terminal are given over to community use and also food cultivation.

Results:

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