Architect: Foteini Kallikouni
Project Year: 2025-2026
Location: Kalamata, Greece
Type: Installation
Status: Complete
Art Direction: Astarti Markopoulou
Wearable Spaces is a series of lightweight play installations in a public school in a small city in southern Greece, where the users themselves become the drivers of the design process.
The building of the 13th Primary School of Kalamata, constructed in the 1980s by the Greek Organization for School Buildings, includes only the most essential spaces and equipment, at times lacking even basic amenities. The courtyard consists solely of a basketball court and a large concrete-paved open area, without play equipment or outdoor furniture, largely due to incidents of vandalism occurring after school hours.
Instead of designing for the students, the students designed for their school. Through a series of hands-on model-making exercises, sixth-grade students created full-scale wearable forms around their own bodies and those of their peers. They imagined the skills and abilities they wished to have at school while wearing these forms and consequently envisioned the kinds of spaces they wanted their school environment to include.
The installations were constructed using lightweight, safe materials for their structural framework, combined with fabrics that allowed the structures to be moved both inside and outside the school. Three distinct spaces were created: a picnic area, where children gather and share food, a fort - greenhouse expressing the need for isolation and “nesting” and a space for rest and relaxation called “Butterfly Dragon”, where students can lie down and unwind.
The students actively participated in building and assembling the installations, witnessing their ideas materialize before their eyes. The project therefore extends beyond the installations themselves. It is a process of activating students’ imagination, understanding their needs and aspirations, and translating them into spatial structures that feel familiar and meaningful to them, while transforming their school into a hub of creative possibilities.