Special Award in International Architectural Competition (UIA)

The Master in Landscape Architecture of the Neapolis University of Pafos was awarded on June 2014 a Jury Special Mention for the submitted participation to the UIA International Architecture Competition of Ideas entitled: “UTOPIA AND/OR HAPINESS.” As the five Members of the Jury Committee point out, each winning team attributes a creative proposal for both the theoretical vision and the design of the urban fabric in the future.
The winning team consists of:

• Christos Constantinides, Graduate Student of the Master Degree Programme in Landscape Architecture, Neapolis University of Pafos
• Dr. Julia Georgi, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Neapolis University of Pafos
• Dr. Anna Maria Vissilia, Lecturer of Landscape Architecture, Agricultural University of Athens

The proposal of Neapolis University team mentioned Dr. Julia Georgi believes that Utopia is more than a fiction; it is a research area that opens up a plurality of spaces. To think out utopia is to think large and wide; to reflect on man’s utopian existence on earth. Therefore, gardens form the perfect medium to be informed and stretched out by utopia. Peripatetic gardens are places of movement and stasis conceived as places to provide an image of the world, a space of simulation for paradise-like conditions, a place where dreams are realized in an expression of a better world, a space for contemplation, a borderland between reality and fantasy to escape the trappings of the modern world and reconnect humanity with nature.