Taking Action

Taking Action
Transforming Athens’
Urban Landscapes
Αναλαμβάνοντας Δράση –
Μετασχηματίζοντας τα Αστικά
Τοπία της Αθήνας
edited by Norbert Kling,
Tasos Roidis and Mark Michaeli

17
Preface
19
Πρόλογος
introduction
25
Norbert Kling, Tasos Roidis
and Mark Michaeli
Taking Action: Working Towards
Positive Urban Change
33
ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗ
Αναλαμβάνοντας Δράση: Προς
μια Θετική Αστική Αλλαγή
Reading and
conceptualising
Spaces of Urban
transformation
43
Mark Michaeli
Re-Imagining Processes
of Urban Transformation:
A Thousand Green Deals
53
Richard Woditsch and
Mark Kammerbauer
The Polykatoikia: An Osmosis
of Public and Private Spaces
63
Tasos Roidis
Catalyst of Urban Transformation:
The “Inner-Urban Landscapes”
Concept
81
Kris Scheerlinck and
Gitte Schreurs
Streetscape Essentials
95
Panos Dragonas
Learning from @Omonoia:
On the Development of Athenian
Public Space through Media
103
Περιλήψεις Ενότητας
Μελετώντας και Νοηματοδοτώντας
Χώρους Αστικού
Μετασχηματισμού

Approaching and
framing situations
of Change
111
Panayotis Tournikiotis
The Issue of Taking Action and
the City of Athens
117
Norbert Kling
Visions and Local Knowledge:
The Urban Everyday as Space
of Change
135
Christos-Georgios Kritikos
Facing Athens’ Urban Heritage
Paradox: An Abandoned
Building Stock as Common(s)?
153
Konstantina Georgiadou
Being an Athenian; or,
Who are we Planning for?
163
Vasiliki Geropanta
Digitally Assisted Community
Mapping
179
Theodora Malamou
#recording_the_city.
Bougada: An Alternative Way
of Mapping Victoria Square
195
Περιλήψεις Ενότητας
Προσεγγίζοντας και Διαμορφώνοντας
Καταστάσεις
Αλλαγής
Negotiating and
realising Change –
Taking Action
203
Eirini Iliopoulou and
Vasilis Avdikos
Participatory Processes in
Integrated Territorial
Development: A Case of
Co-Managing Water Commons
215
Elissavet Bargianni and
Grammatiki Papazoglou
Athens’ Natural Capital: Aiming
for 2030
227
Dimitris Poulios
Re-Thinking the Planning
Process in Athens: Actors,
Governance, Public Space
and Planning Culture
241
Futureproofing Greek Cities:
Old Tools are not Enough.
A Conversation Between Michalis
Goudis and Norbert Kling
253
Jon Goodbun
The Ecological Semiotics of
Air Pollution and Heat in Athens
271
Josep Bohigas and Ioanna
Spanou: Winning, Losing and
Regaining Barcelona’s Urban
Spaces. Edited by Norbert Kling
283
Περιλήψεις Ενότητας
Διαπραγματεύοντας και
Υλοποιώντας την Αλλαγή –
Αναλαμβάνοντας Δράση
287 Debating Athens’ Futures
295 Biographies
298 Acknowledgements
299 Photography and
Graphic Material
318 Imprint

Preface
Urban transformation presents enormous challenges. These have
to be met with the strongest commitments possible if the ambitious
global goals associated with re-thinking and re-making cities and
urban processes are to be realised. Transformation and transition
have become key terms in public debates about current problems
and possible futures. Within the broadly defined field of change,
urban transformation is seen as a prime site of analysis and intervention
since it is here that multiple transformative processes and
transitions intersect. To engage with such processes, inter- and
transdisciplinary perspectives are needed to develop a fuller understanding
of the conditions in and through which transformations
take place and unfold their potential.
The authors in this book aim to contribute to the multifaceted
debate about urban futures and the restructuring of our cities
towards healthier, greener, more liveable and resilient environments.
Coming from different professional and academic backgrounds
involved with the research, planning or production of urban change,
they have joined forces to discuss the ever more urgent issue
of how to make cities more sustainable and responsive to future
change.
The focus of this book is on Athens. Like other cities in Europe
and globally, Athens and its conurbation in and around the Attica
basin are challenged by a series of current and emerging problems
that demand far-reaching decisions and actions. When, in December
2021, the authors first met to discuss the problems of and possible
trajectories for Athens, a set of core questions crystallised and
convergences in their respective approaches became apparent.
This informed the basic structure of this book. During the following
period, a series of exchanges enabled the authors to elaborate their
contributions in parallel to the developing book and relate to each
other across disciplinary boundaries.
The publication is part of the research project which started
as a broadly defined enquiry into the transformation of urban
landscapes by the Chair of Sustainable Urbanism at the Technical
University in Munich (TUM). It developed into an Athenian project
in 2019 as the continuation of a working relationship between the

18
National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and TUM. It was
generously supported for a three-year research period in 2020
by the Schwarz Foundation. Since then, several institutions and collaborators
have participated in the project, including the Gennadius
Li brary of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens,
as well as students, researchers and teaching staff from different
schools of architecture in Greece and at TUM. As the work on the
publication ran in parallel to urban analysis and academic design
projects conducted with students, questions that emerged from
design-oriented perspectives also found their way into the book.
The book’s title, Taking Action: Transforming Athens’ Urban
Landscapes, is an invitation to comprehend and learn from the
Athenian situation, but also to actively participate in and contribute
to the city’s multiple transformations.

Πρόλογος
19
Έχει καταστεί σαφές, ότι οι τεράστιες προκλήσεις που θέτει ο
αστικός μετασχηματισμός πρέπει να αντιμετωπιστούν με τις
ισχυρότερες δυνατές δεσμεύσεις, εάν πρόκειται να υλοποιηθούν
οι φιλόδοξοι παγκόσμιοι στόχοι που συνδέονται με την επανεξέταση
και την αναδιαμόρφωση των πόλεων και των αστικών διαδικασιών.
Ο αστικός μετασχηματισμός και η πράσινη μετάβαση έχουν
γίνει βασικοί όροι σε δημόσιες συζητήσεις σχετικές με τα τρέχοντα
προβλήματα και με πιο βιώσιμα μέλλοντα. Στο πλαίσιο του ευρύτερα
οριζόμενου πεδίου της αλλαγής, η αστική ανανέωση θεωρείται
πρωταρχικός τόπος ανάλυσης και παρέμβασης, καθώς εδώ
διασταυρώνονται πολλαπλές διαδικασίες και μεταβάσεις. Για να
ασχοληθούμε με τέτοιες διαδικασίες, απαιτούνται διεπιστημονικές
και πολυεπιστημονικές προοπτικές, που να πραγματεύονται
την ανάπτυξη μιας πληρέστερης κατανόησης των συνθηκών μέσα
και μέσω των οποίων οι μετασχηματισμοί λαμβάνουν χώρα και
αποκαλύπτουν τις δυνατότητές τους.
Οι θεμελιώδεις αλλαγές που δρομολογούνται ή και συμβαίνουν,
επηρεάζουν αναπόφευκτα τα συμφέροντα και την καθημερινή
ζωή πολλών. Οι συγγραφείς αυτού του βιβλίου έχουν ως στόχο να
συμβάλουν στην πολύπλευρη συζήτηση για το αστικό μέλλον και
την αναδιάρθρωση των πόλεών μας προς ένα πιο υγιές, πράσινο και
ανθεκτικό περιβάλλον. Προερχόμενοι από διαφορετικά επαγγελματικά
και ακαδημαϊκά υπόβαθρα τα οποία ασχολούνται με την έρευνα,
τον σχεδιασμό ή την παραγωγή αστικών αλλαγών, ένωσαν τις
δυνάμεις τους για να συζητήσουν το ολοένα και πιο επείγον ζήτημα
του πώς θα γίνουν οι πόλεις πιο βιώσιμες και πώς θα ανταποκριθούν
σε μελλοντικές αλλαγές.
Το παρόν βιβλίο επικεντρώνεται στην Αθήνα. Όπως και άλλες
πόλεις στην Ευρώπη και παγκοσμίως, η Αθήνα και το πολεοδομικό
της συγκρότημα εντός και γύρω από το λεκανοπέδιο της Αττικής,
αντιμετωπίζουν μια σειρά από υπαρκτά και αναδυόμενα προβλήματα
που απαιτούν μακρόπνοες αποφάσεις και εκτεταμένες δράσεις.
Τις τελευταίες δύο δεκαετίες έχει αναπτυχθεί μια έντονη συζήτηση
για την κατάσταση της Αθήνας και το μέλλον της πόλης. Όταν τον

Δεκέμβριο του 2021, οι συγγραφείς συναντήθηκαν για πρώτη φορά,
για να συζητήσουν τα προβλήματα και τις πιθανές κατευθύνσεις για
την Αθήνα, αποκρυσταλλώθηκε ένα σύνολο βασικών ερωτημάτων,
ενώ έγιναν εμφανείς οι συγκλίσεις στις αντίστοιχες προσεγγίσεις
τους. Αυτό αποτέλεσε και τη βασική δομή του παρόντος βιβλίου.
Κατά τη διάρκεια της επόμενης περιόδου, μια σειρά από ανταλλαγές
ιδεών και απόψεων επέτρεψε στους συγγραφείς να επεξεργαστούν
τα κείμενά τους παράλληλα με την ανάπτυξη των θεματικών
του βιβλίου και να συσχετιστούν μεταξύ τους πέρα από τα όρια του
εκάστοτε γνωστικού πεδίου.
Η παρούσα έκδοση αποτελεί μέρος του ερευνητικού προγράμματος
που ξεκίνησε ως μια ευρεία έρευνα για τον μετασχηματισμό
των αστικών τοπίων από την Έδρα Βιώσιμου Αστικού Σχεδιασμού
του Τεχνικού Πανεπιστημίου του Μονάχου (Sustainable Urbanism -
TUM). Εξελίχθηκε σε ερευνητικό έργο για την Αθήνα το 2019, ως
συνέχεια μιας υπάρχουσας σχέσης συνεργασίας μεταξύ του Εθνικού
Μετσόβιου Πολυτεχνείου (ΕΜΠ) και του TUM. Υποστηρίχθηκε
γενναιόδωρα για μια τριετή ερευνητική περίοδο το 2020 από το
Ίδρυμα Schwarz. Έκτοτε, έχουν συμμετάσχει στο έργο διάφορα
ιδρύματα και συνεργάτες, μεταξύ των οποίων η Γεννάδειος Βιβλιοθήκη
της Αμερικανικής Σχολής Κλασικών Σπουδών στην Αθήνα, καθώς
και φοιτητές, ερευνητές και διδακτικό προσωπικό από διάφορες
αρχιτεκτονικές σχολές στην Ελλάδα και στο ΤUM. Οι εργασίες για
την έκδοση διεξήχθησαν παράλληλα με πολεοδομικές αναλύσεις και
ακαδημαϊκά εργαστήρια σχεδιασμού. Τα ερωτήματα που προέκυψαν
από αυτήν τη διαδικασία βρήκαν επίσης το δρόμο τους στο βιβλίο.
Ο τίτλος του βιβλίου Αναλαμβάνοντας Δράση: Μετασχηματίζοντας
τα Αστικά Τοπία της Αθήνας (Taking Action: Transforming Athens’
Urban Landscapes), είναι μια πρόσκληση να κατανοήσουμε και να
διδαχθούμε από την αθηναϊκή πραγματικότητα, να συμμετάσχουμε
ενεργά και να συμβάλουμε στους πολλαπλούς μετασχηματισμούς
της πόλης.
20

Reading

and
Conceptualising
Spaces of
Urban
Transformation

Re-Imagining Processes of
Urban Transformation:
A Thousand Green Deals
Mark Michaeli
The urgent need for climate-oriented green urban transformation
is now broadly acknowledged. The dramatic increase in the number
and severity of extreme weather events and weather conditions
worldwide poses unprecedented challenges to the safety and longterm
habitability of populated areas. Meanwhile, long-hesitant
policymakers have launched ambitious plans to adapt our urban
living environments to meet the challenges of climate change.
And yet, both from a lay perspective as well as that of the planners
and experts tasked with implementing the transformation project,
the process is painfully slow. It is limited in many places to individual
interventions, whose effect is to improve quality at a local level.
Though committed to nature-based solutions and green urban
infrastructures that serve the entire region, these projects have so
far had little impact because they remain incoherent in the specific
spatial and temporal context of transformation.
In what follows, I turn the spotlight onto the critical dimensions
of, and conditions for, urban transformation processes with the
aim of deriving approaches to overcoming these obstacles. For
the purposes of illustration, I make reference to selected European
cities. In this context, I follow the basic principle of the Inner-urban
Landscape (IUL) (see Roidis, chapter in this book), which I understand
as the spatial backbone of an ecological-social urban system,
encompassing entire urban and metropolitan areas. It is both the
target spatial arena for thousands of jointly formulated and negotiated
green deals between society and individual as well as cultural
and natural processes in time and space.
Transformation as Challenge for Planning
Generally, green urban transformation calls for substantial planning
interventions and guidance. This follows from the recognition that
without a “systematic future-oriented thinking through of goals,
measures, ways and means” – according to a current definition of
planning (Wild, 1974, p. 13, translation by the author) – the chances
of achieving the goals laid down in international agreements such
as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015)
remain slim.

44
Interestingly, however, spatial planning – unlike, for example,
corporate planning – struggles with some of the four dimensions
mentioned by Wild. With regard to “ways” and “means”, experts from
planning practice point out that their scope for action and implementation
is initially limited to legally standardised planning and
decision-making processes. Urban transformation along various
dimensions of sustainability, however, requires project-related
special agreements between the actors involved as a minimum
precondition for the development of productive potential – which,
incidentally, is not unknown in urban planning (Kraft & Schmidiger,
2020). In contrast to formalised legal principles or established
norms for environmental design, these agreements first require a
dialogue between those who set the planning framework and those
investing in or using the space. I would also suggest that, given this
constraint, agreements are more likely to be developed successfully
in a trialogue involving the community. This suggestion is not
rooted in the suspicion that planning cannot express and represent
the interests of the community. Rather, the triangular arrangement
integrates two appreciably vital potentials for accelerating
transformation: firstly, better visualisation and representation of all
interests in the jointly designed transformation process; secondly,
following from this, the mobilisation of numerous new constellations
of actors supportive of the strategic achievement of goals, but now
integrated under the umbrella of jointly agreed goals. In this (game)
set-up, planning itself becomes the advocate of establishing and
securing the equilibrium between the specific spatial and societal
requirements of sustainability and space-transforming entities: the
community as a whole and the individual contributor.
Research focused on the transformation of urban systems and
spaces has identified such re-negotiated and mutually agreed projects
as the key to sustainable development. However, the findings
indicate that initial projects are usually limited to fairly straightforward
situations in which the individual and community benefits
gained are easily measurable and thus clearly attributable to the
participants. It is therefore not surprising that such agreements
are almost never systematically enacted in complex scenarios and
among networks of actors with divergent interests. On the contrary,
planning that is fixated on short-term implementation tends to fall
back on the basic standardised tools. The entire triangle of actors
consequently fails to reach its potential, and many promising and
feasible approaches are ruled out in practice (Brasche, 2019).
Recent research from the field of environmental social sciences
and environmental governance further corroborates the
phenomenon of “institutional” blockages that can occur between
multiple stakeholders even where their development goals converge
(Jensen et al., 2015). In this regard, according to the research,
frictions increase the more the individual subsystems, such as
the participating planning departments, have institutionalised
and codified their respective areas of responsibility. This includes
predetermined administrative logics or procedures defined within
subdepartments as well as optimisation measures or indicator
systems for measuring performance (Madsen et al., 2022). Put
simply, it is not only different performance targets that create problems
for implementation. Rather, even when interests are similar,

the nuanced institutional version of performance accounting can
become an insurmountable obstacle. In a worst case scenario,
for example, a green urban transformation performance measured
by biodiversity might impede another measure evaluated, for
example, by the buffer capacity for rainwater in the decision-making
process. And this despite the fact that the well balanced combination
of both complementary measures would represent a considerable
gain in quality for the overall system, as well as from both
perspectives.
It is for this reason that the aforementioned researchers
maintain that in the complex, multidisciplinary and conflicting field
of urban infrastructure delivery and transformation, alternative
governance models are superior to traditional, heavily departmentbased
planning models (Miörner et al., 2021).
45
Acting in Partnerships and Non-Partnerships
It is a popular misconception that planning, or the public sector,
undertakes planned interventions in the city itself, or can exercise
substantial control over the majority of processes. In fact, this is
true only for relatively few interventions. For the most part, these
are located within cities’ own areas of responsibility, for example,
in the construction of buildings or open spaces as part of public
infrastructure.
In actuality, the vast majority of interventions are undertaken
by market economy actors, private individuals or companies. Their
individual actions are oriented within the parameters set by planning.
Planning stimulates this by means of incentive instruments or
the definition of minimum standards when issuing permits.
However, this means that a controlling effect only occurs if
there is a transformation decision relevant to the legal enforcement
mechanism in the first place – such as, for example, changes to
conditions in approving permits. In the face of a deliberate perpetuation
of an existing situation (non-activity; see, for example, Kritikos
in this book), the established tools of planning are relatively powerless.
Against this background, we should treat slogans in support of
uncompromising, 100 % preservation of existing structures, which
are often voiced in the popular debate with great caution. This is
because they fail to recognise that goal-oriented, sustainable transformation,
which necessitates addressing new issues and inventing
new spatial modes of operation for the city, can only succeed if
there is controlled re-structuring activity at all.
This important aspect of controllability, especially for the
further development of the built – and, given the climate crisis,
increasingly important non-built – spatial stock, is, astonishingly,
all but absent from the transformation narrative on urban space. In
this respect, lessons could be drawn from international experience
with energy conservation laws that have been introduced practically
everywhere in Europe since the 1990s. In the short term, a substantial
slump in the renovation rate of old buildings has followed the
introduction or tightening of regulations. Austrian studies have also
found a shift in activity in private real estate ownership in favour
of “renovation via the DIY store”, which has largely eluded control
within planning processes. (Amann et al., 2020, p. 6, translation by
the author). Contemporary studies on this phenomenon, which was

quickly recognised as a problem of enforcement, primarily focus on
types of (residential) real estate, typically held in individual ownership.
These tend to recommend a review of the instruments developed
to date, which, in addition to regulatory measures and state
subsidies, now provide market-oriented stimuli and mechanisms
that focus on the options available for action by individuals (Weiß &
Dunkelberg, 2010). For this to happen, however, the behaviour
of the actors involved must be plausibly calculable. The navigation
of actors within, for example, a transformation process focused on
sustainability has so far been given short shrift in typically objectfixated
planning.
46
Activating Spatial and Actor Knowledge: Think Tanks and Brokers
of Transformation
Since the middle of the 2010s, transformation research has been
demanding that the knowledge of diverse actor expectations and
behaviour be more effectively activated to enable the creation of
implementable agendas and strategies for green urban transformation
(Werbeloff et al., 2016). A recent study on the everyday supply
structure in Bavaria (Michaeli et al., 2020) shows – as a methodological
collateral product – how different the assessment of the
problem situation and possible solutions can be when the traditional
knowledge base of spatial planning is abandoned and an
alternative view is taken from the perspective of the various stakeholders.
The development and negotiation of a new relational spatial
knowledge (the knowledge of space) is therefore cited in recent
planning science as a basic condition for a socio-ecological reconstruction
of economic activity in space and the provision of the
necessary patterns of spatial use and infrastructures (Hofmeister &
Kanning, 2021).
Equipped with these three dimensions of knowledge 1. on the
system or context, 2. on orientation or goal achievement and 3. on
the organisation of change the authors assign the role of pro-active
transformation broker to the spatial planner and designer. Using
their own instruments, spatial planners and designers can navigate
between different actors in private and public space, as well as
between departmental competences. They assemble knowledge
and networks of actors, identify supporting projects that can form
the backbone for numerous docking processes; they also mediate
between research, politics and implementation practice and supervise
the processes of change that have been initiated.
In keeping with Miörner’s position (Miörner et al., 2021), these
two authors’ reflections entail a new organisation of the governance
of the impending urban transformations, here conceived as a genuine
cross-sectional agency, although at least in Miörner’s case
the risks of such an organisation within the established municipal,
or even national, administrative logics are also considered.
The challenge is primarily that the more openly legal frameworks
– for example, for new forms of inclusion, participation
or compensation of third parties in highly complex planning processes
– have so far only been provided in the rarest of cases.
Although I would endorse this risk assessment, I would nevertheless
like to point out two things: the urgency of the transformative
challenge leaves us no time to explore all possible conflict

configurations in order to then – in the best case scenario – arrive
at a putative Gesamtkunstwerk of a transformation administration.
Nor is it to be expected that all productive models of collaboration
will necessarily be conflictual. Numerous studies on sustainability
transformation (Werbeloff et al., 2016), or on complementary
informal governance models in spatial development practice
(Michaeli et al., 2016), demonstrate the consensual feasibility of
transformation projects in inhabited space along collectively agreed
development goals and comprehensible, visualised incentives.
The contemporary model experiments by Barcelona Regional
(Barcelona, Bohigas, Spanou & Kling, in this book), oriented around
a long-term and strategic plan, or the studies by the Atelier Parisien
d’Urbanisme (Apur) in Paris, which have been informing municipal
transformation policy for over 50 years, are excellent examples.
Both demonstrate how cities can make themselves fit for transformation
through stimulus-providing think tanks and enter into productive
discussion with all those involved in the process (Michaeli &
Häupl, 2014).
47
Transformation Constellations
Before going on to illustrate, with reference to selected European
cities, that such new governance approaches can be successfully
implemented and how, it is worth concluding this theoretical section
with a look at the actual transformation scenarios that await us in
the future.
In principle, transformation denotes the conversion of an initial
state into a target state. In the public discourse, the project of urban
transformation appears strangely monolithic. Beside the description
of the goal to be achieved by the community, considerations
of the organisation of the continuity of the process or the activation
of the complex groups and networks of actors mentioned take a
back seat to descriptions of the state or standard to be achieved in
the future. Here, urban development that is (almost always) additive
and project-focused has not yet been discarded, and the primacy
of growth continues to be the unquestioned engine of change.
However, the transformation that is now imminent also requires
knowledge of how to deal with the abandonment and non-replacement
of certain structures or created investment values, or the
reconstruction of urban infrastructures and their patterns of use
during ongoing operation. In the process, the actors involved will
also have to adapt to new economies of spatial transformation.
The intentional renunciation of uses and building structures
in order to use them as places for the development of open space
or occupation for supposedly low-value uses has so far remained
the exception rather than the rule. However, this deserves greater
attention in the context of larger urban transformation projects and
the increasingly scarce and already depleted inner-city land resources:
for example, if one wants to pedestrianise street spaces,
implement green infrastructures for shading or areas for rainwater
retention, the space must first be reclaimed from motorised traffic.
This means that new, less space-intensive mobility options must
be developed, and stationary traffic must be removed from streets,
for which the acquisition of land and the construction of neighbourhood
(high-rise) car parks is proposed on a case-by-case basis.

Viewed individually, such a project makes neither economic nor
ecological sense and seems to run counter to transformation goals.
However, as a (partial) catalysing measure towards green urban
transformation, it is precisely such initial projects that are receiving
increasing attention today (Apur, 2012, 2020). This kind of intervention,
combined with the targeted acquisition of individual plots of
land, is seen as a strategic and complementary building block for
gaining access to public spaces in a densely populated and privatised
urban structure such as Paris. In this way, measures to improve
the environment can be implemented, especially in rather narrow
street spaces (greening, improvement of amenities and promotion
of alternative modes of transport – especially pedestrian traffic. So
far, these have mostly been limited to wide street sections or urban
spaces earmarked to be freed of motorised traffic due to spatial
requirements for stationary traffic.
48
Establishing New Continuities
What appears quite coherent in its conception, however, often turns
out to be very difficult in its implementation, especially because
such interventions are associated with enormous costs for the
community, which, at least in conventional fiscal accounting, can
scarcely be recouped by the environmental improvements. However,
the beneficial urban ecology-climate potential of such coupled
measures is estimated to be enormous. The exploratory study
published in 2020 by the agency Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme –
established as early as 1967 and operating as a platform between
policy advice, scientific groundwork and the writing of development
proposals (Barcelona, Bohigas, Spanou & Kling, in this book) –
estimates the amount of additional Parisian urban street space
that can potentially be activated in this way at over 450 kilometres,
quadrupling the street length previously considered green corridors
(Apur, 2020).
Assuming that the assessment of the capacity of the street
space profile is no longer primarily based on the needs of traffic
organisation but on the growth of street space greening, recent research
results from construction botany suggest further activation
potential in so-called tree façades (Höpfl et al., 2022). This involves
specific techniques of growing and pruning asymmetrical growth
forms that also allow the lateral placement of trees in the street
space. This means that narrow street cross-sections, which are
typical of Mediterranean cities, may now be planted with greenery.
While the large-scale use of such building structures close to the
façades of existing urban structures is precluded both by underground
cable routing, the lighting requirements of the buildings, and
also by considerations of the ventilation of the street spaces, they
offer a potential supplement as a bridge element in the ecologically
functional blue-green network of the city (Well & Ludwig, 2021).
In addition to the rare corridors that can be developed in
spatial-physical continuity of green structures, the resulting complementary
network inheres in the idea of the pas japonais – the
arrangement of stepping stones in a Japanese garden. Although
arranged at a distance from each other, they nevertheless enable
passage or transition. Green elements are arranged in relation
to each other in such a way that the functional continuity of the

climatic corridors is preserved despite physical interruptions
imposed by the urban structure. It should be noted, however, that
the continuity requirements of air exchange or surface water drainage,
for example, differ greatly. In addition, they must be carefully
adapted to the topographical context. They do not necessarily
follow the same developmental routes.
In densely built-up urban areas such as Paris or Athens, the
relative importance of climate-functional green spaces found or
established in isolated locations cannot be underestimated. On a
third supplementary level, conversion concepts now also include
smaller pocket parks, urban residual areas along or in the middle
of infrastructure corridors, as well as private green structures. They
are assessed individually or, if too small-scale, as an area cluster
with regard to their ecological-climatic performance and integrated
into the green infrastructure plan in a similar way to the Japanese
garden stepping stones (Apur, 2020).
This approach of integrating private areas into the functional
green space network is gaining traction in current discussions.
In urban, morphologically dense and developed contexts, this is
explained by the scarcity of areas in public space that can be activated
for green transformation. However, urban climate studies on
local city and neighbourhood scales also demonstrate the importance
of the less densely built, suburban or garden city neighbourhoods
as production and distribution spaces for fresh and cold air
flows, and as crucial structures for coping with heavy rainfall events
in the urban environment. These outlying districts and suburbs,
which are located relatively close to the city centre in metropolitan
conurbations, are in danger of losing their ecological-climatic
functionality in hitherto little-controlled redevelopment processes.
Due to ongoing urbanisation and re-densification processes, they
are currently coming under particularly severe pressure. The climate
adaptation discussion will therefore have to focus much more
sharply than before on the outer areas of the city. This is particularly
a matter of prevention strategies that can become effective
in conjunction with measures in the vulnerable core area and thus
contribute to the mitigation or averting of overheating effects, smog
and flash foods.
It is in outdoor areas that the fresh air flows that cool the city
centres must be generated. Precipitation must be buffered, drained
and percolated here in order to protect heavily sealed inner-city
areas. This is where the decisive qualitative changes in the provision
of infrastructure must take place – which, for example, allow the
choice of alternative forms of mobility and so reduce congestion
in the inner cities, creating fresh space for green structures. While
core areas are primarily made fit to cope with climatic challenges,
safeguarding and coordinating measures in the outer areas and the
surrounding landscape ensures that local climatic problems are
minimised.
In order to be able to influence urban climatic conditions positively
and to a sufficient extent in the future, the focus will consequently
also have to be on private properties, as these take up the
largest share of land in urban areas, and this is where the greatest
potential exists from a mitigation perspective.
49

50
Transformation in Practice
In some European contexts, this happens in a highly regulatory way.
For example, in the Swiss canton of Zurich, where environmental
planning for private property and thus practically the entire open
space design, long-term care and maintenance is subject to building
law (Canton of Zurich, 2022). Other cities and regions rely on the
conceptual integration of small-scale measures for private property
in overarching transformation planning, but act not so much
through regulation as through new agreements between public and
private actors.
In its plan for a climate-adapted infrastructure in the field of
rainwater management, for example, the Polish city of Gdansk
actually puts the development of private green spaces at the forefront
of the transformation process. The establishment of numerous
so-called rain gardens on private properties, supported by advisory
services and subsidies, forms the preparatory basis for the longterm
total reconstruction of the surface water management of the
entire city, which will extend over several decades. The initial focus
here is on measures to increase infiltration and storage. In the long
term, a closer coupling of this isolated small-scale infrastructure
with the subsequent higher-level pipe network is possible, so that
retained precipitation could be activated, for example, for irrigation
of green elements to bridge dry periods (Kasprzyk et al., 2022).
Even if the framework of measures in the relatively small city
of Saarlouis in western Germany is rather modest compared to
the large metropolises, the fairly simple approach taken deserves
a special mention: in this case, a now widespread state support
programme for planting trees on private properties is linked to strategic,
spatial-structural conditions. The costs for the trees are then
fully covered if they are planted in the area between the building
structure and the street on private land. This not only progressively
establishes a green corridor shading the street spaces along traffic
areas. As a positive collateral eff ect, sizeable areas of Saarlouis,
mostly previously used as temporary parking lots, are unsealed
and thus reclaimed as valuable areas for rainwater management
(Municipality of Saarlouis, 2022). In this way, a clever combination
of a superordinate structure- building approach and private initiative
results in a transformation process in which the city figuratively
“replants” itself and “grows from within” continuously. This strategy
appears to be beneficial for all actors from both a community and
an individual perspective.
It is therefore important to develop new models of equilibrium
between stakeholders and society for the forthcoming transformation,
and to involve as large a group of private individuals or
numbers of individually acting subjects as possible in the process.
These projects show that this can be done not only through financial
support or coercion, but also, for example, in a less intrusive
way – through encouragement, planning support or risk protection
combined with clever conditions for connecting the individual measures
to the overarching strategy.
The procedure should be unconditionally flanked by investment
and compensation funds to be set up as part of the transformation
process. This is an important element and an instrument which
makes it possible to compensate, promote and encourage those

who would otherwise emerge as losers from the jointly supported
and politically sanctioned overall process. In addition, such funding
enables continuous implementation of the transformation plan,
which comprises numerous different sub-measures, by permitting
the provision of strategic upfront investment – of temporal and
other resources as well as fiscal – and hedging the associated
litigation risks. These must be considered, for example, in the form
of replacement buildings or redundancy infrastructures wherever
the continuous and seamless operation of infrastructures must be
ensured.
However, the most important factor for generating and securing
numerous individual measures is the timely inclusion and participation,
in the sense of a trialogue, of all actors involved in shaping the
transformation and implementing it in the spatial area in question.
Within the framework of the resulting transformation agreements,
in a counter-current exchange, thousands of individual green deals
can be turned into the supporting and decisive engine of the transformation,
within the framework of an overarching green deal for
the city region.
51
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The Polykatoikia:
An Osmosis of Public and
Private Spaces
Richard Woditsch and Mark Kammerbauer
The polykatoikia and its Greek urban context are the product of
a process of co-evolution that reflects a constellation of economic,
legal and social preconditions that are partial to a culturally specific
mode of modernization. If the polykatoikia and its urban context
are so specific and unique, one might ask the legitimate question
of how its study can contribute to other cases of (European) cities
and urban development. A reading of this building type reveals
three principal characteristics. They relate to the polykatoikia as a
building type, as an urban phenomenon and as a spatial integrator.
Firstly, the polykatoikia has proven that it can host a diverse set
of functions within a common structure (micro-scale, mixed-use).
Secondly, the polykatoikia defines the entire cityscape of Athens
through a form of “copy-paste” reproduction from the city’s centre
to its periphery (copy-paste urbanism). Thirdly, the polykatoikia
demonstrates how public and private spaces merge into an osmotic
sphere through the interaction of a specific set of rules, resulting in
a culturally specific interface connecting the space of the city and
the space of the building (osmotic sphere).
Micro-Scale Mixed-Use
A defining aspect of the polykatoikia as a building type is the fact
that it was originally intended for housing. At the same time, however,
it offered room for a diverse set of functions. It was created
with a clear separation of functions in mind, echoing the core intent
of Modernist planning but, eventually, it became both an instrument
and a stage for mixing uses on the small scale of the individual
building. On the upper floors and sometimes in the staircases,
public or semi-public functions, such as language schools, offices,
print shops, etc., can be found. This functional mix does not obscure
the fact that the original purpose of the polykatoikia was the
provision of dwelling space for families as an answer to the housing
crisis; instead this fact is emphasised by the observation that the
vertical extension of various “additions,” or the stacking of different
functions and apartments, is hardly the result of an architectural
design. Neither is the mix of different socio-economic groups within
an individual building the outcome of a purposeful process. At first,
the social structures of the polykatoikia were homogeneous, but
from the mid-1970s onward, these social structures changed rapidly
(Theocharopoulou, 1999, p. 69). Originally intended as housing for

1
View across the urbanised Attica basin towards
Mount Penteli to the north of Athens. Photo by
Richard Woditsch.

2
Roofscape and shaded street. Densely-built urban fabric of polykatoikias.
Photo by Richard Woditsch.

3 Typical polykatoikia comprising ground floor shops, balconies and awnings.
Photo by Richard Woditsch.

Imprint
© 2023 by ȷovis Verlag GmbH
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Pictures by kind permission of the
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Translations
English texts into Greek:
Anna Argyropolou (chapter by
Norbert Kling, Tasos Roidis and
Mark Michaeli) and Tasos Roidis
(preface and summaries of all
non-Greek speaking authors).
German text into English:
Karl Detering (chapter by
Mark Michaeli).
Copy editing
Simon Beesley and Anne Ellen Koth
for English texts. Anna Argyropoulou
for Greek texts.
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