"Re-Storying the [Un]Seen site of Nicosia: Creating a new communal edge "

The project’s main purpose was determined due the discovery of existing fragments of ‘Life’ within the ‘Dead Zone’ of city of Nicosia, which currently merge at the boundary of the buffer zone. The proposed project creates a new active edge in the city introducing a Refugee Asylum and Education centre.

We live next to fences, sandbags, barriers, and walls, fragmented points that construct the division of the city. These elements suggest that there is no life beyond this edge. Behind this allusive boundary I saw the potentials of a new living infrastructure. Through the process of mapping I explored the small-scale ordinary things of the site. This discarded and forgotten edge began to take a new meaning when I started looking closely at the way it was informally and accidentally inhabited. The characteristics found helped me to identify the unique characteristics of the particular place at the same time uncover its alternative identity. Based on the routes that were followed it was observed that some parts of the official military buffer zone were accessible, eliminating the formally defined buffer edge; a new porous edge was identified. The project’s main purpose was determined due the discovery of this porosity, as existing fragments of ‘Life’ were discovered within the ‘Dead Zone’ of city of Nicosia.\nThe proposed project is based on a phased programme, which starts as an emergency zone for displaced refugees. In the 2nd phase, it continues by integrating refugees with the existing neighborhoods and with a view to becoming an asylum that provides living spaces and education facilities that allow users to integrate with the surrounding neighborhood. The intervention works to recreate a new edge as a meeting point that exposes internal uses, provides accessibility through its layered POROSITY and sometimes creates BOUNDARIES. \nA second factor is the route that is followed in order to approach the site. The project incorporates a path that leads to interior and exterior communal spaces or that have different qualities and offer various experiences. The buffer edge now act as a meeting point, were refugees and local people come together creating a new living edge.