Five metal cubes:
extension to the main administration building,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki, Greece

K- Architects
A. Kotsiopoulos, E. Zoumboulidou, A. Panou

Preliminary phase design
A. Kotsiopoulos, M. Papanikolaou, I. Sakellaridou

Civil Engineers
A.U.Th. Technical Service

E/M engineers
A.U.Th. Technical Service

Photos by B. Louizidis, A. Kotsiopoulos

total built area
500 sqm

design
1991 (phase I)
1997 (phase II)

construction
2000

The five metal cubes are placed on the terrace of the first floor of the main administration building designed by Papaioannou and Fines in 1960. The five small buildings house additional administration offices of the University and are covered by a thin transparent metal “skin”, which allows transparency from the inside to the outside and improves the energy behaviour of the buildings. Different versions of the idea of a transparent skin, carrying improved climatic characteristics, are to be found in all the five projects of the last years to be presented here, and which could be characterized by some kind of ‘return to a new version of simplicity’.

Publications

  • Architecture in Greece, 36 (issue specialized on A. Kotsiopoulos work on university buildings) / 2002

  • A. Giakoumakatos, “city and knowledge: university buildings and urban tissue” in: Architecture in Greece, 36, 2002, pp 58 - 64

  • Materials and Buildings, July 2006