Zavraka Despoina

Studies:

Despoina Zavraka (born 1977) is an Architect (Dip Arch Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art). She has postgraduate studies on Landscape Architecture and holds a PhD specialising on urban landscape design (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). Her research agenda builds on fluid correlations between urban and natural environment, at different scales, and interstices of architecture upon urban space.

Teaching:

Despoina Zavraka is an assistant professor of architectural design and public space at the School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh). She has been an assistant professor in International Hellenic University (IHU). She has also been teaching at postgraduate courses of ‘Environmental Architectural Design’, ‘Landscape Architecture’ and ‘Advanced Design’ (AUTh), as well as ‘Environmental Design’ at Hellenic Open University (HOU). Her recent lectures and invited juries are dealing with intesified issues of ubiquitous nature and the urban context.

Research and Scientific activity:

She has taken part in research, scientific programs and interdisciplinary groups, focusing on contemporary design investigations, as well as architecture and urban landscape hermeneutics. She has participated in recent research projects related to innovative issues of architectural design, cutting-edge technologies and the relationship with urban space and historicity (V4design & MindSpaces EU Horizon 2020 Research Projects).

She is a member of INNEN research unit – Innovative Environments (AUTH), and a member of MOHA Research Center scientific committee, for long-term interactions and cross-cultural investigations in Mediterranean urban cultures.  She is also a member of BElab (Built Environment Laboratory) IHU.

Architectural activity:

Despoina Zavraka is practicing architecture since 2003. She has participated in more than twenty (20) architectural competitions, on Architectural and Urban Design. She has received distinctions and awards. Her architectural work includes a wide range of projects.

Publications:

Her recent book, urbanBLUR (Thessaloniki: 2015, CND publications), edited in English, relates to contemporary issues of architecture and the city.

Her publications include articles: ‘Transitional Landscapes: Cemeteries and the Urbanism of Silence’ (In: Goodman, ed, UNISCAPE: Landscape and Imagination. Paris: 2013, Bandecchi & Vivaldi Editori), but also more recent: ‘The multitude of Modica-The multiplicity of minima’ in the catalog of the 17th Venice International Bienanle and ‘Editorial Surfaces’ in the issue STRUCTURES, 2021.