Athens (Greece) 2019
athensSUPERSCRIPT (independent)
The-mice-ate-the-door Library is a space on the border of the inside and outside of a school, on the very limit of the neighbourhood and the school yard. It is a library that will also address both the students and the children of the neighbourhood. We redesigned the back gates of the school converting them into a library and vegetation space. Our aim has been the creation of a spatial game in which plants and books on the threshold of the school are inviting children from both sides to explore it. The 2nd Grade school children and designers used play and artistic expression as a common language in order to design the door together. The intervention has been implemented in the framework of This is Athens-Polis programme (2019).
External Collaborator: Babis Baltas, 35th Primary School
Tutors: Natalia Bazaiou, Anastasia Noukaki, Tina Vardalachou
Students: 2nd Grade class, 35th Primary School pupils
Research Question
Our team organizes actions for elementary school children concerning the city and architecture. Our aim is the interpretation, appropriation and transformation of the urban space from the children’s eye level.
One of our recent actions was designed for a primary school in the burgeoning neighborhood of Exarcheia, which is mainly targeted at refugees (90%) and few neighborhood residents (10%). Despite the difficulties faced in its day-to-day operation of the school, teachers try to incorporate the school life to the city, as a resoloution to the contradictions that are facing. Bringing the children into contact with everyday urban issues and cultivate contacts with the neighborhood as a community (shops, professionals, writers, historians, local actors) through Celestin Freinet’s educational approach we aim to reinforce all cultural pluralism of the area.
Link: athensSUPERSCRIPT
School, Greece, Permanent, 0-10, Architecture, Months, Sponsorship, +, Collaboration, Extra-curricular, Students with other, Independent
