Thanasis Korras graduated with a BSc in Architecture from the University of Bath in 2008. He has gained invaluable experience during this course on a pragmatic and sustainable approach to Architecture, as well as in the process of its realization being in ongoing collaboration with Civil Engineering students of the University. His final project was a residential complex that was emphasizing in introducing the concept of communal living as it was developed in the 1960s in Denmark to Bath while at the same time aiming to restore a degraded, central street of Bath to its former glory.
After his graduation he was employed by http://www.zege.gr/ where he has done professional placements in years 2 and 3 of his degree. The practice’s field was luxury villas, vacations houses and luxury hotels in Greece. He gained valuable experience both in synthesis but also on construction sites as he was lucky enough to be trusted to carry out the projects that were assigned to him through all the realization phases, from proposals plans straight to construction supervision.
In 2010 we decided it was time for him to obtain his RIBA 2 qualifications and was accepted to the MArch course in Architecture on the University of Westminster. He was part of Design Studio 10 held by http://marjan-colletti.blogspot.co.uk/ and Hannes Mayer. The studio explored fetish(isation) in architecture as an extremely precise articulation of aspired, yet often exaggerated, even dysmorphic, perfection and gratification. Thanasis explored Glamour as a fetish and designed a building addition to Moscow’s glamorous shopping mall, GUM, positioned in the historic Red Square, opposite of the Kremlin and next to Saint Basil’s infamous cathedral. The addition introduced performance and exhibition spaces, as well as bar/restaurant with extraordinary views across Moscow and a children’s play area. The morphology of the building was based on three-dimensional interpretation of Kazimir Malevich’s suprematism paintings and the subdivision of its volume through 3D Voronoi. The materiality of the building was based on manipulation of light, reflections and liquidity, characteristics of glamour in Architecture. It was a very intense year as it required a completely opposite approach to architecture than the one he has been taught in Bath University. The process of using a psychological effect to lead to form finding rather than the focus on a structural grid and a programme changed a lot in his perception of Architecture and gave him a completely new toolbox.
Now in his final year he is part of the Design Studio 10 held by Arthur Mamou-Mani and Toby Burgess and he believes to be an ideal fit as he has the chance to combine both approaches of his past academic experience and use a tectonics approach in combination with digital fabrication and parametrization to explore new architectural paths, possibly the paths that future Architecture will soon embrace in its whole.
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