The proposal that the school and the guest houses be incorporated into the site, utilizing the light, the wind, the water and the planting –all constituent elements of the Mediterranean architectural expression- was a conscious intention from the beginning of this project. This proposal involves spatial arrangements of fundamental architectural archetypes, as well as elevates the importance of outdoor life, social osmosis and the vital relationship with nature to the condition necessary to artistic creation.
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The faculty is a landmark for the area and the cultural village of Lemba, which houses the curriculum of the Cyprus Art College, accommodates visiting artists, as well as functions as a cultural space for both the villagers and the visitors. It is therefore a public building complex that functions as a training area and independent art and creation space, while remaining an integral part of the village, which forms, together with the square, a unified core and condenser of life. A complex that provides students and artists the right conditions in order to interact and socialize, to collect suitable stimuli form their enviroment, to evolve and to create.
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The organization of the school around patios/social condensers with a different and variable degree of introversion, expressed through an inherent simplicity of shapes and forms, describes our architecture proposal for the School of Fine Arts of the Cyprus Art College.
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Three simple and geometrically clear lines configure the central concept and set up the proposal.
_1.Two shear walls of compressed earth (rammed earth) in shape Γ, which follow the plot’s borders, cut off the faculty from the “pluralism” of the adjacent buildings and comprise two distinct sections. A thinner, perforated shear wall of the same material is placed at the eastern boundary with the archeological site, distinguishes the main and the secondary (auxiliary) entrance and configures the limit/filter towards the archeological site.
_2.Two panels, located at a distance from both shear walls, interact with them and house closed and semi-open spaces. They acommodate workshops and exhibition spaces, to allow integration with the outdoor space.
_3.Two rectangular prisms, exalted with regard to the two panels and the shear walls, host the administration and teaching domains, form the public facet and set up the two patios/creative condensers, thus completing the composition.