Konstantinos Lalenis (M.Eng., PhD) is a Professor in the Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece. His specialization is in Urban Planning and Urban Governance. He was awarded for Excellence in Teaching by AESOP, and for Academic Excellence by the Greek Ministry of Education. Current research interests include participation and governance issues, planning law and institutional frameworks, strategic planning, and in the use of blockchain technology in urban planning, within the frame of urban resilience.
Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση των επιλογών χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού των πανεπ... more Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση των επιλογών χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού των πανεπιστημιουπόλεων και η διαχρονική εξέλιξή τους. Η επισκόπηση της διεθνούς και εγχώριας βιβλιογραφίας αναδεικνύει ένα πλούσιο υπόβαθρο ιδεών και πρακτικών, του οποίου οι επιδράσεις είναι εμφανείς και στην Ελλάδα. Η ειδικότερη αναφορά στο ελληνικό παράδειγμα, δείχνει ότι οι επιλογές σχεδιασμού και χωροθετήσεων εξαρτώνται κυρίως από τις συγκεκριμένες συνθήκες της διαθέσιμης γης, ή του κτιριακού αποθέματος, ή από την πολιτική και κοινωνική πίεση των τοπικών αρχόντων και κοινού. Μια συγκριτική ανάλυση επιχειρείται για δύο campus της τελευταίας "γενιάς": Το Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας στο Βόλο και το ΤΕΙ Καβάλας, που έχουν να επιδείξουν διαφορετικές επιλογές χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού. Ιδιαίτερη αποτίμηση γίνεται στην αλληλεπίδραση των δύο αυτών εκπαιδευτικών ιδρυμάτων με τις πόλεις που τα φιλοξενούν, στα δίκτυα επικοινωνίας και συγκοινωνίας που αναπτύχθηκαν και εν τέλει στην αλληλεπίδραση ...
The end of the century has found Greece in an intensive effort to be “an equal partner” in the Eu... more The end of the century has found Greece in an intensive effort to be “an equal partner” in the European Union and join the European Monetary System. A crucial element of the introduced policies was the recognition of the significance of the local factor in improving the whole system of administration, and the gradual granting of increased responsibilities to the local authorities. For this, a restructuring of the whole system of local administration has been attempted, with the introduction of successive legislative frameworks and regional policies. Special emphasis was given in spatial dimensions, which were considered as significant elements of the introduced policies and were incorporated in the structure of the new forms of administrative units. The present paper describes the characteristics of the reforms, evaluates their up-to-now performance and attempts to explain the divergence between the initial expectations and the outcomes of the described policies. In the discussion, ...
The article deals with the influence of French transplants on the evolution of the Greek local ad... more The article deals with the influence of French transplants on the evolution of the Greek local administration. Greece has since its independence from Ottoman Empire, heavily relied on foreign transplants, mainly in public administration, the legal system, and spatial planning. Local administration has been the sector in which the most durable examples of trans-temporal institutional transplantation were recorded, where the donor, the type of transplant, and the receiver remained the same for a little less than two centuries. French influence has been high in Greece, due to the spirit of the revolution of 1789, which also inspired Greek revolution against the Ottoman Empire. The traditional alliance and cooperation between the two countries and – most importantly – the fact that both had very centralised administrative systems, led to the adoption of a French system of local administration in 1828. Since then, the evolution of local administration in Greece went through many phases a...
The Olympic Village settlement was constructed under the responsibility of Workers Housing Organi... more The Olympic Village settlement was constructed under the responsibility of Workers Housing Organization during the preparation of the 2004 Olympic Games. It is a new city with 2.292 housing units which was developed in a very short time period (3.5 years) via the system of organized planning. It is situated in an area outside of the urban fabric of Attica and the post - Olympic settlement has a population of approximately 10,000 inhabitants with different demographic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. The inhabitants of the post - Olympic settlement are beneficiaries of the Workers Housing Organization. They have been selected after a lottery and satisfied previously determined social criteria. The methodology of the research was supported by the analysis and statistical process of 2,292 questionnaires supplemented to the beneficiaries by the year 2003, during the Census of Workers Housing Organization for the lottery of housing units of Olympic Village settlement. The res...
Community resilience provides capacity to speed up recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impac... more Community resilience provides capacity to speed up recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impact of crises and helps to plan and adapt to long-term urban challenges. Public places are vital structural elements of the urban environment and they are considered useful tools for community resilience if they have physical and social capacities, with inclusiveness as their conceptual basis. This chapter investigates the main resources and activities of community resilience related to urban public places, and explores whether public places are useful tools for risk mitigation, emergency response, recovery and adaptation. A case study in the Greek city of Volos is conducted. The study explores the existing institutional framework and community building for disaster management, it surveys public spaces in Volos, and explores their role in disaster prevention. Furthermore, the case study investigates social risk mitigation practices in public spaces, identifies challenges associated with co...
Cultural reproduction is one of the main prerogatives to determine behavioural interaction betwee... more Cultural reproduction is one of the main prerogatives to determine behavioural interaction between immigrants and their host environment. And in turn, cultural reproduction mainly develops within a framework of urban conditions, policies and substructures aimed to provide for residence, mobility and transportation, education and information, health and social services, and leisure, cultural and athletic activities. A major challenge nowadays for urban planning and urban governance is to incorporate in its processes the new dynamics created by increasing migration, and secure for immigrants all the above in an acceptable quality –that in essence is fostering their human rights. Greece has been traditionally a source of outgoing migration until early ´90s, when the collapse of the neighbouring communist regimes and the destabilization of the Middle East made it a destination of migration, mainly coming through its northern and eastern borders. According to the Greek legislation, im...
Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning, 2020
Since 2012, and particularly since 2014, instability and wars in North African countries and the ... more Since 2012, and particularly since 2014, instability and wars in North African countries and the Middle East have brought a wave of refugees, trying to flee from violence in their countries, to Europe. They usually go north, crossing the Mediterranean towards Italy, or the Aegean, going west to the Greek islands. In their quest for a safe refuge, a significant number drown or disappear. The rest reach in Europe carrying their traumatic experiences with them, and face immediate humanitarian needs. A major task for host cities is to provide shelter for the refugees, taking into consideration the influence of their psychological trauma on local societies. This complex task, which combines technical, economic, social, psychological, and political dimensions-simultaneously targeted on two social groups-constitutes the 'post-traumatic urbanism' which intervenes in the recreating of the refugees' spatial and social networks in the host city. This paper discusses how the complex...
This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and pr... more This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and promoting Underground Built Heritage (UBH) based on the nexus heritage, territory and society, and making use of existing literature and findings from five international cases. The research was conducted in the framework of the working group on Planning Approaches of the COST Action Underground4value. The analysis of the cases aims to provide guidelines for this working group and to benchmark good practices in activating UBH. It highlights the importance of community-led initiatives, leadership and dialogue and power sharing between the local/regional authorities and communities aiming for better understanding of the potential of UBH. The successes and/or failures of the five cases emphasise the importance of knowledge and experience in participatory approaches. Success was verified, when effectiveness and democratic principles were combined in the planning process, and local history is in...
This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and pr... more This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and promoting Underground Built Heritage (UBH) based on the nexus heritage, territory and society, and making use of existing literature and findings from five international cases. The research was conducted in the framework of the working group on Planning Approaches of the COST Action Underground4value. The analysis of the cases aims to provide guidelines for this working group and to benchmark good practices in activating UBH. It highlights the importance of community-led initiatives, leadership and dialogue and power sharing between the local/regional authorities and communities aiming for better understanding of the potential of UBH. The successes and/or failures of the five cases emphasise the importance of knowledge and experience in participatory approaches. Success was verified, when effectiveness and democratic principles were combined in the planning process, and local history is in...
Since the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on March 18, 2016, more than 70,000 refugees hav... more Since the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on March 18, 2016, more than 70,000 refugees have been trapped in Greece. Most have been settled in state-run camps on the perimeters of Athens and Thessaloniki. However, these state-run camps do not meet international standards and are located at significant distances from urban centres, within industrial zones where residential use is not permitted. At the same time, a number of self-organized and collective refugee housing projects have been created within the urban fabric of Athens and Thessaloniki. In the context of these projects, refugees develop forms of solidarity, mutual help, and direct democracy in decision-making processes. There is a significant volume of bibliography which studies the NGOs’ activities and state migration policies. However, little attention has been given to the various ways by which refugees create self-managed and participatory structures to meet their needs. This article aims to fill the gap in the re...
&... more <p>The COST Action 18110 Underground4value (http://underground4value.eu) aims to advance knowledge on how to guarantee continuity of use and significance of underground historic fabric. It is collecting information, experiences and knowhow to base the development of research and training. The Action focusses on underground regeneration, revitalisation of the public realm and skills development for people concerned with underground heritage.</p><p>This contribution centres the attention of the Working Group on Planning Approaches. It also looks at the role of local authorities, as enablers and facilitators, in coordination, use  and management of underground built heritage. In this framework underground built heritage is considered as a social resource with integrated programmes of physical, economic and social measures, backed by strategic stakeholder dialogue.</p><p>On the one hand, this contribution discusses the structure and goals of the WG, as it pays attention to the necessary complementarities between functional approaches – at the level of regions and city – and social and cultural approaches involving citizens’ engagement and empowerment – at the local level. This WG aims to provide a reflection on sustainable approaches to preserve the underground built heritage and, at the same time, to unfold the case by case approach for potential use of underground space. On the other hand, to achieve its objectives the WG on Planning Approaches is setting together potentials and constraints in the efforts to make better use of underground heritage. This contribution, therefore, sheds lights on the preliminary results of the WG. It is centred on the learned lessons, challenges and barriers - from a planning science perspective - that experts met in their efforts to tackle Underground Built Heritage. Achieving this goal makes the call for an educational paradigm shift - as the Action is not only interested in compiling the results, rather on experiences that can be analysed and learned. This requires a dynamic understanding of knowledge, abilities and skills, towards creating more effective coalitions of ‘actors’ within localities, by developing structures, which encourage long term collaborative relationships. Enabled by the gained knowledge, the WG will define the best tailored…
Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση των επιλογών χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού των πανεπ... more Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση των επιλογών χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού των πανεπιστημιουπόλεων και η διαχρονική εξέλιξή τους. Η επισκόπηση της διεθνούς και εγχώριας βιβλιογραφίας αναδεικνύει ένα πλούσιο υπόβαθρο ιδεών και πρακτικών, του οποίου οι επιδράσεις είναι εμφανείς και στην Ελλάδα. Η ειδικότερη αναφορά στο ελληνικό παράδειγμα, δείχνει ότι οι επιλογές σχεδιασμού και χωροθετήσεων εξαρτώνται κυρίως από τις συγκεκριμένες συνθήκες της διαθέσιμης γης, ή του κτιριακού αποθέματος, ή από την πολιτική και κοινωνική πίεση των τοπικών αρχόντων και κοινού. Μια συγκριτική ανάλυση επιχειρείται για δύο campus της τελευταίας "γενιάς": Το Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας στο Βόλο και το ΤΕΙ Καβάλας, που έχουν να επιδείξουν διαφορετικές επιλογές χωροθέτησης και σχεδιασμού. Ιδιαίτερη αποτίμηση γίνεται στην αλληλεπίδραση των δύο αυτών εκπαιδευτικών ιδρυμάτων με τις πόλεις που τα φιλοξενούν, στα δίκτυα επικοινωνίας και συγκοινωνίας που αναπτύχθηκαν και εν τέλει στην αλληλεπίδραση ...
The end of the century has found Greece in an intensive effort to be “an equal partner” in the Eu... more The end of the century has found Greece in an intensive effort to be “an equal partner” in the European Union and join the European Monetary System. A crucial element of the introduced policies was the recognition of the significance of the local factor in improving the whole system of administration, and the gradual granting of increased responsibilities to the local authorities. For this, a restructuring of the whole system of local administration has been attempted, with the introduction of successive legislative frameworks and regional policies. Special emphasis was given in spatial dimensions, which were considered as significant elements of the introduced policies and were incorporated in the structure of the new forms of administrative units. The present paper describes the characteristics of the reforms, evaluates their up-to-now performance and attempts to explain the divergence between the initial expectations and the outcomes of the described policies. In the discussion, ...
The article deals with the influence of French transplants on the evolution of the Greek local ad... more The article deals with the influence of French transplants on the evolution of the Greek local administration. Greece has since its independence from Ottoman Empire, heavily relied on foreign transplants, mainly in public administration, the legal system, and spatial planning. Local administration has been the sector in which the most durable examples of trans-temporal institutional transplantation were recorded, where the donor, the type of transplant, and the receiver remained the same for a little less than two centuries. French influence has been high in Greece, due to the spirit of the revolution of 1789, which also inspired Greek revolution against the Ottoman Empire. The traditional alliance and cooperation between the two countries and – most importantly – the fact that both had very centralised administrative systems, led to the adoption of a French system of local administration in 1828. Since then, the evolution of local administration in Greece went through many phases a...
The Olympic Village settlement was constructed under the responsibility of Workers Housing Organi... more The Olympic Village settlement was constructed under the responsibility of Workers Housing Organization during the preparation of the 2004 Olympic Games. It is a new city with 2.292 housing units which was developed in a very short time period (3.5 years) via the system of organized planning. It is situated in an area outside of the urban fabric of Attica and the post - Olympic settlement has a population of approximately 10,000 inhabitants with different demographic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. The inhabitants of the post - Olympic settlement are beneficiaries of the Workers Housing Organization. They have been selected after a lottery and satisfied previously determined social criteria. The methodology of the research was supported by the analysis and statistical process of 2,292 questionnaires supplemented to the beneficiaries by the year 2003, during the Census of Workers Housing Organization for the lottery of housing units of Olympic Village settlement. The res...
Community resilience provides capacity to speed up recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impac... more Community resilience provides capacity to speed up recovery from disruptions, minimizes the impact of crises and helps to plan and adapt to long-term urban challenges. Public places are vital structural elements of the urban environment and they are considered useful tools for community resilience if they have physical and social capacities, with inclusiveness as their conceptual basis. This chapter investigates the main resources and activities of community resilience related to urban public places, and explores whether public places are useful tools for risk mitigation, emergency response, recovery and adaptation. A case study in the Greek city of Volos is conducted. The study explores the existing institutional framework and community building for disaster management, it surveys public spaces in Volos, and explores their role in disaster prevention. Furthermore, the case study investigates social risk mitigation practices in public spaces, identifies challenges associated with co...
Cultural reproduction is one of the main prerogatives to determine behavioural interaction betwee... more Cultural reproduction is one of the main prerogatives to determine behavioural interaction between immigrants and their host environment. And in turn, cultural reproduction mainly develops within a framework of urban conditions, policies and substructures aimed to provide for residence, mobility and transportation, education and information, health and social services, and leisure, cultural and athletic activities. A major challenge nowadays for urban planning and urban governance is to incorporate in its processes the new dynamics created by increasing migration, and secure for immigrants all the above in an acceptable quality –that in essence is fostering their human rights. Greece has been traditionally a source of outgoing migration until early ´90s, when the collapse of the neighbouring communist regimes and the destabilization of the Middle East made it a destination of migration, mainly coming through its northern and eastern borders. According to the Greek legislation, im...
Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning, 2020
Since 2012, and particularly since 2014, instability and wars in North African countries and the ... more Since 2012, and particularly since 2014, instability and wars in North African countries and the Middle East have brought a wave of refugees, trying to flee from violence in their countries, to Europe. They usually go north, crossing the Mediterranean towards Italy, or the Aegean, going west to the Greek islands. In their quest for a safe refuge, a significant number drown or disappear. The rest reach in Europe carrying their traumatic experiences with them, and face immediate humanitarian needs. A major task for host cities is to provide shelter for the refugees, taking into consideration the influence of their psychological trauma on local societies. This complex task, which combines technical, economic, social, psychological, and political dimensions-simultaneously targeted on two social groups-constitutes the 'post-traumatic urbanism' which intervenes in the recreating of the refugees' spatial and social networks in the host city. This paper discusses how the complex...
This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and pr... more This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and promoting Underground Built Heritage (UBH) based on the nexus heritage, territory and society, and making use of existing literature and findings from five international cases. The research was conducted in the framework of the working group on Planning Approaches of the COST Action Underground4value. The analysis of the cases aims to provide guidelines for this working group and to benchmark good practices in activating UBH. It highlights the importance of community-led initiatives, leadership and dialogue and power sharing between the local/regional authorities and communities aiming for better understanding of the potential of UBH. The successes and/or failures of the five cases emphasise the importance of knowledge and experience in participatory approaches. Success was verified, when effectiveness and democratic principles were combined in the planning process, and local history is in...
This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and pr... more This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and promoting Underground Built Heritage (UBH) based on the nexus heritage, territory and society, and making use of existing literature and findings from five international cases. The research was conducted in the framework of the working group on Planning Approaches of the COST Action Underground4value. The analysis of the cases aims to provide guidelines for this working group and to benchmark good practices in activating UBH. It highlights the importance of community-led initiatives, leadership and dialogue and power sharing between the local/regional authorities and communities aiming for better understanding of the potential of UBH. The successes and/or failures of the five cases emphasise the importance of knowledge and experience in participatory approaches. Success was verified, when effectiveness and democratic principles were combined in the planning process, and local history is in...
Since the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on March 18, 2016, more than 70,000 refugees hav... more Since the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on March 18, 2016, more than 70,000 refugees have been trapped in Greece. Most have been settled in state-run camps on the perimeters of Athens and Thessaloniki. However, these state-run camps do not meet international standards and are located at significant distances from urban centres, within industrial zones where residential use is not permitted. At the same time, a number of self-organized and collective refugee housing projects have been created within the urban fabric of Athens and Thessaloniki. In the context of these projects, refugees develop forms of solidarity, mutual help, and direct democracy in decision-making processes. There is a significant volume of bibliography which studies the NGOs’ activities and state migration policies. However, little attention has been given to the various ways by which refugees create self-managed and participatory structures to meet their needs. This article aims to fill the gap in the re...
&... more <p>The COST Action 18110 Underground4value (http://underground4value.eu) aims to advance knowledge on how to guarantee continuity of use and significance of underground historic fabric. It is collecting information, experiences and knowhow to base the development of research and training. The Action focusses on underground regeneration, revitalisation of the public realm and skills development for people concerned with underground heritage.</p><p>This contribution centres the attention of the Working Group on Planning Approaches. It also looks at the role of local authorities, as enablers and facilitators, in coordination, use  and management of underground built heritage. In this framework underground built heritage is considered as a social resource with integrated programmes of physical, economic and social measures, backed by strategic stakeholder dialogue.</p><p>On the one hand, this contribution discusses the structure and goals of the WG, as it pays attention to the necessary complementarities between functional approaches – at the level of regions and city – and social and cultural approaches involving citizens’ engagement and empowerment – at the local level. This WG aims to provide a reflection on sustainable approaches to preserve the underground built heritage and, at the same time, to unfold the case by case approach for potential use of underground space. On the other hand, to achieve its objectives the WG on Planning Approaches is setting together potentials and constraints in the efforts to make better use of underground heritage. This contribution, therefore, sheds lights on the preliminary results of the WG. It is centred on the learned lessons, challenges and barriers - from a planning science perspective - that experts met in their efforts to tackle Underground Built Heritage. Achieving this goal makes the call for an educational paradigm shift - as the Action is not only interested in compiling the results, rather on experiences that can be analysed and learned. This requires a dynamic understanding of knowledge, abilities and skills, towards creating more effective coalitions of ‘actors’ within localities, by developing structures, which encourage long term collaborative relationships. Enabled by the gained knowledge, the WG will define the best tailored…
This innovative book defines the concept of immured spaces across time, space and culture and inv... more This innovative book defines the concept of immured spaces across time, space and culture and investigates various categories of restricted places such as divided, segregated and protected spaces.
Drawing on examples from across the world, this book analyses not only what separates and divides space, but also the wide variety of impacts that the imposition of new barriers and boundaries or the opening of existing ones has on places, people and surrounding areas. Contributors integrate case studies with theoretical analysis to draw conclusions and advance an analytical framework of immured spaces. The chapters present a point of reference to highlight areas of significance and also to encourage further detailed work in this important area.
The book has a strong research dimension and will therefore be of interest to academic communities in planning, cultural heritage, psychology, architecture and urban studies. In addition, the use of case studies to develop a common framework will appeal to practitioners and policy makers.
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Drawing on examples from across the world, this book analyses not only what separates and divides space, but also the wide variety of impacts that the imposition of new barriers and boundaries or the opening of existing ones has on places, people and surrounding areas. Contributors integrate case studies with theoretical analysis to draw conclusions and advance an analytical framework of immured spaces. The chapters present a point of reference to highlight areas of significance and also to encourage further detailed work in this important area.
The book has a strong research dimension and will therefore be of interest to academic communities in planning, cultural heritage, psychology, architecture and urban studies. In addition, the use of case studies to develop a common framework will appeal to practitioners and policy makers.