West City Gardens, Thessaloniki, GR

Polytrope's Entry for the Arxellence 2 competition, West City Gardens is a proposal aiming to redefine the way current business centres work and their contribution to the wider city fabric on both a financial and social level. With a strong emphasis on sustainability via a reduced carbon footprint strategic approach, WCG is an incubator of a plethora of social and private functions which aim to uplift Thessaloniki’s emergent West End.

The scheme builds upon the site’s and the city’s multi-layered character and rich history, echoing the gardens that once occupied the area, prior to its industrialisation of the early 20th century. The proposal operates as a recombinant interpretation of Thessaloniki’s most distinct elements: water, the city and the surrounding “Kedrinos lofos” hills. Reflecting on the city’s typological mossaic, elements such as: the “stoa” and the baths become centerpieces of the proposal, anchoring the CBD to its context.

The design concept comprises of a set of dune fomations on the ground with a cluster of seven vertical constructs emerging from within them. The dunes host the communal program and flexible co-working spaces, whilst the vertical elements are dedicated to standardized workspace arrangements. This helps achieve a gradient between the city and the CBD, allowing for the lower levels to be smoothly integrated within the urban fabric. At the same time, the office and residential elements maintain a sense of privacy at the upper levels, while the dunes operate as connective tissue, binding the site together through a unifying formal and programmatic strategy.

The building program is distributed into medium-rise, “lantern-like” towers, to maintain a moderate height plot, while offering an iconic skyline to the city of Thessaloniki. The undulating landscape hosting these towers will become a new green destination for the city and a place for people to come together, collaborate and socialize. West City Gardens could be Thessaloniki’s new financial, cultural and urban landmark.

 
The office tower has a simple arrangement which maximizes views out and enables flexible planning. Rectangular in plan, it has an atrium in the middle, which hosts the vertical circulation functions and also acts as balcony and break out space for the employees, bringing light into the interior. 

In a move to minimise carbon emissions and keeping in mind the large amount of structural material required for the development, CLT and GLT make up the dominant elements of most of the site’s structures. Although relatively atypical for Greece, engineered timber has been developed to demonstrate excellent structural properties and along with minimal steel elements it can provide an excellent, low carbon choice for our site.

The potential of aluminium and glass infinite Recyclability; sourcing already recycled materials and making sure they are re-used after the building’s life, is leveraged in choosing them as the primary façade materials.