Publications

The presentation showcases four award-winning and distinguished entries in architectural competitions, focusing on urban and peri-urban landscapes. These projects are guided by the same principles, with a common component that integrates the hidden spatial and temporal dynamic—the spirit of the place—into the design. Incorporating the existing ecosystem into the design proposal ensures the sustainable management of natural resources.

At the same time, a social dimension is embedded, aiming to foster interaction between the next generation and nature. Through the design of functional landscapes, adapted to the unique characteristics of each location and the contemporary need for sustainable environments, memories are created for children, encouraging experiential interactions that enhance empathy and the pursuit of a better quality of life.

We would like to emphasize the need for places with identity and dynamism, free from stereotypes. We need flexible "punctuation marks" to connect and compose our own unique picture—both for ourselves and for the places that host us.

A human-centered strategy is crucial for effective energy retrofits, as the subjective experience of occupants directly affects the energy performance of buildings. To address this, we introduce UXindoor, a standardized scoring framework for assessing the User eXperience (UX) of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). UXindoor is a key component of the PRIME Energy-Indoor project, which aims to guide integrated building energy retrofits based on real energy usage and IEQ data. The framework utilizes questionnaires, handheld instruments, and IoT environmental sensors in a unitary assessment framework. This feasibility study presents the results of the pilot-testing of the framework in two public buildings in Thessaloniki, Greece over a six-month period from September 2022 to February 2023. The study discusses the advantages of the proposed system as well as its limitations.

The global COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on building energy use as a result of local emergency policies such as lockdowns, remote working and increased building ventilation being applied for an extended time. In this study we apply the energy signature method to two public office buildings in Thessaloniki, Greece to compare their energy performance before (2018-2019) and during (2020-2021) the pandemic. The energy signature method normalizes electricity and natural gas consumptions to the average climate, eliminating the influence of annual weather patterns on energy use and differentiates between heating, cooling and base energy. This allows us to compare the two periods using data from monthly utility bills. Results show a reduction (ranging from 16% to 26%) in both heating and cooling energy consumptions during the pandemic period for both buildings which is not related to differences in annual weather patterns. Although this old method is quick and straightforward to use it has its own limitations which are discussed along with potential ways it can improve.

In a completely undeveloped space of a former tobacco warehouse building in Thessaloniki, a new 350 sq.m. area was created to house the new offices of an engineering consulting company.