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Onassis scholars Constantine Bouras and Evita Fanou participated at the Tallinn Architecture Biennale (13 September - 27 October 2017) with the installation WATER CIRCLE[S], a presentation of their research on a water management prototype. The Biennale, titled BioTallinn, addressed issues like contemporary socio-ecological systems, adaptive design in urban contexts, resource smart architecture for power or clean water generation, waste management and air purification, among others.
The research addresses the issue of water management through a constructed equivalent of a natural wetland. This park prototype constitutes an urban drainage corridor - with water tanks and permeable surfaces - that decreases the rate, velocity and volume of surface water runoff in cases of heavy rainfall, helping protect adjacent and downstream properties, as well as the broader area from flood damage.
The research used New York as a case study for the design prototype, since the city was severely affected by the megastorm Sandy. The intention is to see how such infrastructure can perform within a very dense urban fabric and how it could potentially be applied, as a relief zone, anywhere. The design idea of the project is based on the concept of gravity and the circle of water: tanks that receive, collect, store and treat rainwater, functioning through a topographical height difference.
Constantine Bouras is an architect and urban planner. He holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he studied on a scholarship from the Onassis Foundation and the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. He studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens, where is currently pursuing his PhD. He has worked in architectural firms in Athens, Milan and New York and as a research assistant at the Public Space Authority of Mexico City. He has taught Architecture and Urban Design with Marion Weiss at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Architecture and he is editor of the book Evolutionary Infrastructure (2012). His work has been exhibited in Athens, New York and at the Toyo Ito Museum in Japan.
Evita Fanou is an architect and researcher. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the National Technical University of Athens, as a scholar of the Onassis Foundation. She holds a professional degree in Architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University of New York. She has participated in many international conferences and lectured in various universities such as GSAPP, GSD and the Cooper Union. She has collaborated with architectural firms in Athens, Thessaloniki and New York and she has been awarded prizes and honorable mentions in international and European architectural competitions, including a first prize in an international competition for a fishing harbor and educational park in Cyprus, which is now under construction.
