My concept deals directly with the various layers of the city both culturally and historically. This hierarchy present inside the walled city of Nicosia, Cyprus has the upper hand and the whole design process is based upon. Therefore, the title Seniority in the Hierarchy.
The plot that I am working on is located in the southern, Greek part of the divided city. It is the the district of the old municipality market. This plot was selected specifically because it is a rich cultural area, where there are multiple museums; the NiMac- Nicosia Modern Art museum-, Byzantine museum, Folks Art Museum. Also, the town hall is being relocated to the void right next to the market hall. This relocation of the town hall was the starting point for my idea, as new archaeological ruins were discovered recently during the excavation process for building the new town hall. This plot was recently renovated, meaning that all the streets were properly pedestrian paved, high quality shops, workshops and offices were present. nowadays the old building of the municipality market is abandoned with no clear plan for its future yet. So while studying the district intensively, i found out that there was no common architectural style, some buildings were left abandoned from the time of the civil war, 1947, the NiMac from the 90’s and the new offices of thetown hall that follow the style of contemporary archaeology. Hence, using archaeology as a common fabric for the plot. Since these archaeological ruins are the main players in this scenario, it made sense to have a research and restoration center in direct contact with the findings, specially that after researching, there was no official institute for such function inside the walled city, given that Nicosia is one of the oldest cities in the world and that archaeological findings are discovered frequently with most of the excavations taking place on the island. Thus, creating a National Research & Restoration Center For Nicosia was the perfect type of building to have. The aforementioned is the first part of my project, relating to the historical layer of the city.The second part of the project, relates directly to the cultural layer of Nicosia, where a cultural alternative agenda is translated into architecture as residence for the young local artists of the city.
