Expo Grounds Design as an Opportunity for Sustainable Urban Transformations. Thessaloniki´S International Fair Perspective

Abstract

The paper concerns expo grounds design projects as opportunities for sustainable urban transformations with a resilient perspective for the cities. It focuses on Thessaloniki’s International Fair site as a case study, promoting the transformation of the expo site in a new metropolitan urban park, an ecological and cultural place in the city center, a place of connection, memory and social interaction, featuring the cultural, natural and historical background of the place, as opposed to the redesign of a new ConfEx Park in the same site supported by the state and the authorities since 2020. The multidimensional socio-ecological and perceptual approach of landscape architecture is applied, perceiving landscape as a palimpsest, a framework in progress related to the physical resources and space capability. This perspective is supported theoretically by the related PhD research (2021) and illustrated in the undergraduate students’ design projects of the Urban Design Studio (2023-24).