Greek Architecture

For 25 centuries the Parthenon has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, and disfigured by catastrophic renovations. To save it from collapse, the modern restoration team must uncover the secrets of how the ancient Greeks built this icon of western civilization in less than nine years without anything resembling an architectural plan.

In the Gymnasium,  nds from deep trench- es located in the western part of the pal- estra indicate a construction around 330– 320 BC. It remained in use until the end of the 1st c. AD if not later, whereas the eastern part seems to have been abandoned a cen- tury earlier.
Excavations then focused in the eastern part of the Gymnasium.The entrance of the building was uncovered in area T. It appears to have been later blocked o  when the in- ternal layout of the edi ce was modi ed. Room U is a late addition since it was not erected before the middle of the 2nd c. BC. It opened on the eastern side of the cen- tral courtyard through three columns and two pilasters. Bases found inside the room along the wall belonged to a bench.
The unexpected discovery of three bronze statue fragments in well K3 is exceptional in the long history of excavations at Ere- tria. The two forearms, as well as a section of clothing were brought to light together with numerous bones belonging to several human individuals and animals. The well was  lled sometime in the 3rd c.AD.

Architecture Research Thesis, Lydia Giokari - Vasileios Chanis, March 2015, University of Patras-Greece, Supervisor Georgios A. Panetsos.
Full title: A Modern Suburban "Polykatoikia" in Filothei: The apartment building in Kifissias 272 by Nicos Valsamakis.

The climate in Greece, described as Mediterranean climate, is characterized by hot-dry summers and cool-wet winters, which requires the development of adaptability tactics concerning the architectural design. Meanwhile, school buildings are considered to be structures of high energy consumption with significant losses during function hours. Starting from scratch, it was required to design an energy efficient nursery school, receiving 78 children and 20 infants in a site of 2.180sq.m., responding to the local climatic conditions in Aspropyrgos, a town situated in a valley in Attica.
The basic goal, in terms of design procedure, was to design a contemporary two-storey nursery school with sustainable applied methods, creating daylight and thermal comfort and becoming familiar to the young users. A vocabulary of sustainable tactics is taken into consideration, including both passive and active strategies. The methods applied, can constitute a prototype for buildings with high energy demands in this particular climate.
The primary decisions which would constitute a significant role to the energy performance impact were the optimal building orientation in the site and the well-studied building shape. Additionally, the building envelope is treated in an architectural prototypic way meeting the shading role of interior spaces during warm period and the penetrating role during cold period. Thus, the building volumes can serve as shading elements with minimal use of external additional systems. Moreover, regarding to the choice of the building materials, the thermal insulation and the coating, are included to optimize the energy efficiency, achieving thermal comfort.
Concerning the external spaces of the nursery school, semi-protected spaces of appropriate scale are proposed in the courtyard, serving the occupant needs and optimizing the microclimate. Furthermore, photovoltaic panels, solar panels for hot water and suitable artificial lighting contribute to the tactics’ list for a sustainable nursery building.
The architectural design is realized along with analytic work including the shadow, daylight and thermal simulations corresponded with conclusions that can be drawn from these tests. The respective software that was used for these analyses are Ecotect and Radiance for the shadow and daylight simulations, and Tas for the thermal simulations.
By the implementation of passive systems and active techniques, a significant portion of energy saving is achieved in accordance to the standard requirements for a bioclimatic nursery in mediterranean climate, decreasing the daily building energy loads.
The findings of this analysis will be useful references for the architects and environmental engineers working on the field of sustainable design, contributing to the development of a prototype urban typology regarding to new nursery buildings.