Re-thinking the Buffer Zone as a network of exceptions

Eleni Andreou

Tutors: S.Strati

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This Thesis project aims to enrich and revise the role of architecture in contested spaces. It investigates the spatial practices that erode the exceptional status quo of the United Nations Buffer Zone of Cyprus and explores the daily routines of agriculture and inhabitation. They have evolved since 1974, becoming an exception to the inaccessibility imposed by the UN Buffer zone regime. Thanks to critical cartography, the existing exceptional spatial practices of the UN Buffer Zone’s status are revealed to demonstrate that the UN Buffer Zone ceases to be a solid strip of inaccessible land. The Thesis proposes a design catalogue of infrastructural and spatial tactics that support Cypriots to claim the use of the territories within the study area of the UN Buffer Zone informally at Mammari Nicosia. Thanks to the design catalogue, the accessibility, porosity and mental maps of the territory change. Furthermore, collective spatial practices are encouraged over the current individual ones.