Brave New Axis: Perpendicular to Athinas street | Awarded Student Work by Georgios Thalassinos, Spyridon Loukidis & Markos Georgios Sakellion

Athens: A city that has rejected the classical notion of the axis. In their Diploma Thesis, students Georgios Thalassinos, Spyridon Loukidis, and Markos Georgios Sakellion develop an architectural scenario hat reinterprets the axis as a path composed of dynamic points. These spatial points act as nodes within a broader and more intricate urban network, revealing new connections between people’s needs, desires, and rhythms, the natural and the artificial fabric of the city. The project was awarded in the EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025, which recognizes outstanding student projects that address contemporary social, urban, and environmental challenges.

Find out more about ‘The Winners’ of EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025, here!

Axis, an imaginary straight line that connects, divides, promises, imposes.

Everything around us is made of lines—lines that articulate, accelerate, fragment, confine, and delineate movements, patterns, and fields. There is a multiplicity within the line, both in the differences one holds in relation to another, and at the same time in the very substance of the line itself.

The eye perceives the line, yet misses the multitude and the diversity of distinct points that comprise it. Or perhaps it is this hidden internal multiplicity that makes one line differ from another.

And if the nature of the points that form the linear body changes over time, does the whole change as well?

Athens’ 1833 plan imposed neoclassical order on its medieval fabric. A monumental axis running east to west, accommodating civic and private uses, gradually dissolved into a linear urban zone. A pivotal zone that links four urban mosaics, a sequence of urban voids-points concealing a lost linear path.

Yet, the city itself has rejected the classical notion of the axis. A new approach is needed—one that redefines this path, not as a rigid line, but as a series of dynamic points – fields one encounters along the journey.

The three of us studied the ‘’Brave New Axis’’, examining six points—fields within the historic triangle of Athens, along the linear zone defined by two ends: Klauthmonos Square and Koumoundourou Square.

Through the reinterpretation of the classical notion of the axis—whose function the city itself has rejected—an axial composition is attempted, one whose character is no longer defined by the line itself but by the points encountered along its path.

A free garden of curved nerves, a labyrinth in the negative urban space, a Forum as a geometric centre, a Fourierist Phalanstery reintroducing the question of collective housing into the city’s core, and two ex-parking spaces redefined as public zones—each forms an autonomous element within a broader linear entity that connects them.

Point. 0: Garden

Klauthmonos Sq. is a palimpsest of Athenian history, where layers of time intertwine. The square is divided in two levels, an open plaza and a secluded garden with organic paths. Below, an underground passage links the nearest metro station, activating cultural spaces.

Point 1: Labyrinth

In Athens’ commercial heart, a “monoblock” rises—a tribute to the labyrinthine arcades shaping the city’s identity. Beneath its towering presence, a lively ground floor unfolds, arcades reveal hidden courtyards, while rooftops offer respite from urban chaos.

Point 2: Forum

At the axis’ centre, the produce market, opposite the municipal market, becomes a Forum. A recessed square emerges, where the market’s pulse beats beneath sheltering arcades.

The old and new markets, along with Eastern and Western Athens, meet and interact.

Point 3: Phalanstery

Theatre Sq. today presents itself as a hidden urban room—a tarmacked plateau currently functioning as a car park and forming the nucleus of a zone filled with vacant shells.

The square transforms into a space of collective living, where vacant structures are redefined as social housing. This shift reimagines the area as a community hub, fostering urban connectivity and social bonds.

Point 4: Circle

The area around Koumoundourou Sq. is preserved, but urban gaps are reborn. A circular plaza anchors the space, while a linear park unfurls like a ribbon, inviting passersby to linger, reflect, and engage.

Point 5: Lunaparking

A multi-use building rises at the square’s edge. Its flexible Corbusiean structure liberates the ground floor from private use, blending parking with communal spaces, adapting to the city’s evolving needs.

Physical Model

Facts & Credits
Project title Brave New Axis: Perpendicular to Athinas street
Type Diploma Thesis 
Awarded in EUmies Awards Young Talent 2025
Students Georgios Thalassinos, Spyridon Loukidis, Markos Georgios Sakellion
Supervisor Tilemachos Andrianopoulos
Presentation Date July 2023
University National Technical University of Athens, School of Architecture
Text by the authors