Μαρία Μάρκου
Keywords: ambiance, collective memory, contested space, Nicosia
The design of Nicosia's buffer zone was the subject of an urban composition course at the School of Architecture NTUA. The paper assesses the educational value of this experiment, as contested areas show how difficult it is for architecture to manage the discontinuity of city space and time. Noting that the course did not avoid stereotypes, the paper states that the relevance of architectural responses to organizational needs of such complex spaces requires, beyond the cognitive, an experiential or even an intuitive reading. If the concept of “ambiance” describes the emotional potential of space, its ability to resonate with the human psyche, then it could be a tool suitable for this approach.