Crafted Space: A Hybrid Structure in Platres Village

Abstract

The workshop ‘Crafted Space_ A Hybrid Structure in Platres Village’ aimed to provide a platform for an immersive cooperation between young architects and students of architecture in a hands-on, creative workshop. The two weeks long workshop took place in July 2019 as part of a series of annual summer events organised by the Cyprus Architects Association. Six faculty members of the Department of Architecture at the University of Nicosia led the workshop.

The workshop was an experience based activity that enhanced the students’ creativity and ability to interweave diverse influences and conditions.  The students were involved in a range of academic and non-academic activities that were equal parts of the learning process.

At the beginning the students were introduced to the history of the site and its Colonial identity but became truly familiar with the place by walking in the village, staying there for the duration of the workshop and meeting locals.

The learning process was driven by the diverse thematics of the workshop and included thinking via making, hand-on testing, groupwork, interaction and creativity, notions of history and place, the study of vernacular construction techniques, the appreciation of the practicalities of joinery and the ability to appropriate and simplify construction methods so that they can be tested within a tight timeframe and by utilising the limited tools available.