Next Famagousta
George Kallis
Tutor: S. Stratis, P. Pyla, A. Antonas
The proposal aims to put forward suggestions on how the status quo of Famagusta, including its accessible and non-accessible part, as well as the new possibilities that may arise, can be exploited and evolved to the greatest extent possible when the non-accessible and no-man’s land of Varosha shall be made available for habitation. The objectives is to formulate new version of the city, ‘Next Famagusta’, through the use of alternative means of urban design and by following and unconventional approach as to the management and handling of the existing condition of the city. The intention of the proposal is not the thorough reconstruction of the city by applying a completely new urban planning, neither the restoration of the city in its pre – 1974 status. ‘Next Famagusta’, suggests the formulation or the development of a newly evolved Famagusta, taking into account the current status of the city and paving the way for other subsequent versions of it. The concept ‘next’ in not limited to a linear progressive phase, but it is used to challenge and redefine facts in relation to the city of Famagusta and the way in which urban areas are planned in Cyprus.
Any possible alternative intervention to the city presupposes an alternative way of recording its status quo. For the purposes of the proposal, the recording executed was based on successive layers describing dynamic relationships between physical characteristics of the city. The differentiation of a specific layer and consequently the way and extend such a differentiation may affect other physical relationships of the city, was examined. The city – nature layer was selected as the dynamic layer in which each design intervention will act.
The assessment of the current relationship of the city with nature, in conjunction with previous time periods, is challenging due to the fierce discussions that take place concerning ecology, sustainable development, ‘green’ policies and awareness towards the natural environment. Therefore, through the proposal the utopia – which according to S. Boeri may lead to forms of ‘dystopia’ – of the harmonious coexistence of man and nature is rethought and re-discussed. It can be argued that the concept of natural environment is broadened and the boundaries between the man-made and the naturally-made environment are blurred. Today’s ‘nature’ in the era of nanotechnology has not only consists of flora, fauna, geology etc., but rather technology has become so incomprehensible and uncontrollable which itself constitutes another form of ‘nature’. It is a ‘next nature’ which, one way or another cohabits with oldest.
In this sense, the case of Famagusta forms a hybrid of natural environments. It’s hard to say which one is the oldest ‘natural’ environment of the city since it is the old, ‘authentic’ nature that has made the city in need of a radical reconstruction. Thus, the unique nature relationship that currently exists in Famagusta is the filter through which the proposal is defined: The ‘next nature’ of the ‘Next Famagusta’. Is this the way the re-habitation of the city occurs as an extension of the existing status of the city, creating a ‘next nature’ waiting to be inhabited?
