Lester Cheung

Piraeus Archipelago | Athens, Greece| Unit 21 | 2019

Awarded Distinction for Design

‘Piraeus Archipelago’ is a redevelopment masterplan for the cruise port of Piraeus, it proposes a strategy to improve the cruise-city relationship whilst creating a rewarding experience for cruise tourists. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s strategy to boost trade and economic exchange across the globe, which promotes investments in infrastructures to improve physical connectivity with other countries. The geolocation of Greece is known as China’s gateway to Europe, the port of Piraeus is the first European stop of the maritime Silk Road.

Greece, the country seriously in debt could not resist the Chinese capital, therefore both the container and passenger port of Piraeus are sold to the Chinese shipping company COSCO. Piraeus is the port where the cruise passengers hop off and go straight to see the city of Athens and the Acropolis, however, Piraeus as a city gets neglected. The project promotes Piraeus as a new tourist destination, Piraeus Archipelago represents a new opportunity for both the city and the cruise industry. Through the expansion of the city’s cruise port, a new destination is created for cruisers, tourists and residents alike. The scheme hopes to improve the ship-city relationship, allowing Piraeus to benefit from the growing cruise industry. Using Piraeus as a test-bed the scheme presents a revolutionary shift in the way the cruise industry operates in the port cities visited by ships, by addressing the social, economic and environmental issues associated with cruising.

The entire project is based on a single piece of data: the cruise arrival schedule of 2018. The data was manifested into a drawing which shows all the activities happening in the time-based site of Piraeus cruise port. The project transforms the port into a waterfront urban park that serves both the locals and the tourists. Water is being used to submerge and reveal spaces in creation to different ‘islands’ in limiting access/zoning the users within the site, spaces are activated for different users based on the data (number of cruise passengers), that creates a spontaneous border between the public area and the private cruise port, hence the site can be fully utilised. The project is essentially a data-driven landscape.