ECOWEEK 2009 Empowering Youth: Ecology + Leadership + Architecture

March 31 - April 06, 2009 - Athens, GR Greece

The ‘ECOWEEK 2009 Empowering Youth: Ecology + Leadership + Architecture’ conference and interdisciplinary workshops in Athens, Greece, will give the chance to young professionals and graduate students to work side by side with known architects, designers, and engineers from Greece and abroad, and to learn from them the principles and implementation of ecological building and sustainable design. The interdisciplinary workshops will deal with the former site of the international airport of Athens in Hellenikon. The groups will not attempt to repeat the international competition on the site; neither give tips to improve the official plans for the site; neither will attempt to impose architectural symbols and schemes from abroad. The workshops will rather attempt to re-approach this important site for Athens and the residents of the metropolitan city, based on ecology, locality, community and sustainability. The groups will produce three proposals (with possible variations): (a) A Metropolitan park of zero waste (b) A zero-emissions and zero-waste neighbourhood (c) A combination of the two. The proposals will be presented at a press conference and public discussion at ECOTEC 09, on Monday April 6, at 12:00, at Expo Athens, Anthousa. ECOWEEK 2009 like in the past, has invited a number of internationally acclaimed speakers to Athens. ECOWEEK has invited in the past Al Gore, Robert Swan, Ken Yeang and others. This year ECOWEEK 2009 expects the participation of: landscape designer Julie Bargmann, environmental engineer Byron Stigge (Buro Huppold), architect Simon Tonks (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners), the Director of the Institute for Urban Design in New York Olympia Kazi, the Director of BioRegional in London Benjamin Gill (in cooperation with the British Council), architect Nataly Gategno and architect Jason Johnson (Future Cities Lab & University of Michigan), architects from Denmark and the UK (in cooperation with the Royal Embassy of Denmark and the British Council respectively), architect Alexandros Tombazis, architect Agnes Couvelas, engineer of ecological building Costas Tsipiras and others. Registration opens in February 2009. Students: 100 euro. Young Architects: 150 euro (late registration: 250 euro).

Contact:
Elias Messinas, Int'l.Assoc.AIA
ecoweek@ecoweek.gr
ECOWEEK International Environmental NGO
+972544286998
Web site: http://www.ecoweek.netfirms.com/ecoweek/index_ENG.html