You can find the article here or please contact the author for further information.
The article on the educational aspects of the "Nicosia International Airport: The Return" Project has been published in the the European Journal of Engineering Education, highlighting the evolution of the project and how this was used as a model for the Integrated Design module, as well as how it was used to initiate the talk for the future of the airport.
You can find the article here or please contact the author for further information.
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All Groups have submitted their proposals which include a 10-minute video presentation and a 30-page report highlighting the three key areas for the development of Nicosia International Airport Hub. You can see the Brief in Greek or English here. Please visit the Competition website to see each video presentation and vote which one you like best. If you have some comments about the relevant proposals or the project you can always leave your feedback on our contact form. Ο Διαγωνισμος Ξεκινησε!Όλες οι Ομάδες-Κοινοπραξίες έχουν ήδη υποβάλει τις προτάσεις τους, που αποτελούνται από ένα δεκάλεπτο video και μία 30σέλιδη Τεχνική Έκθεση. Οι υποβολές επικεντρώνονται στους τρεις βασικούς πυλώνες του project: την χωροταξία, τις κτιριακές εγκαταστάσεις και το επιχειρηματικό μοντέλο της ανάπτυξης, στην βάση των Τεχνικών Προδιαγραφών που δόθηκαν και μπορείτε να τις δείτε εδώ.
Παρακαλώ επισκεφθείτε την ιστοσελίδα του Διαγωνισμου για να δείτε τα videos και να ψηφίσετε την πρόταση μου πιστεύετε ότι είναι η καλύτερη. Επίσης, εάν θέλετε να μας αφήσετε κάποιο σχόλιο για τις προτάσεις ή το project γενικότερα, μπορείτε να το κάνετε στο Δελτίο Επικοινωνίας. Currently in the last week of the project and yesterday had the last meetings with each team. They are now on their own to finish off the project proposals and prepare the video presentation, which will be uploaded on this website for the public to vote for their favourite scheme so stay tuned! In the mean time follow the links to each Group's profile to see their interim presentations.
in alphabetical order FUTURE REVIVES THE PAST - Nicosia International Airport PEGASUS Hub - Nicosia International Airport PHOENIX - Regenerating Nicosia International Airport Φτάνοντας στην τελευταία εβδομάδα του προγράμματος, οι φοιτητές είχαν τις τελευταίες συναντήσεις με τον συντονιστή και εργάζονται τώρα για την ολοκλήρωση και υποβολή των προτάσεων τους τις οποίες θα μπορείτε να δείτε σε αυτή την ιστοσελίδα την επόμενη εβδομάδα και να ψηφίσετε την αγαπημένη σας πρόταση. Μέχρι τότε μπορείτε να επισκεφθείτε την ιστοσελίδα της κάθε ομάδας-κοινοπραξίας, όπως αναφέρονται αλφαβητικά πιο κάτω: FUTURE REVIVES THE PAST - Nicosia International Airport PEGASUS Hub - Nicosia International Airport PHOENIX - Regenerating Nicosia International Airport Week 5 is possibly the most eventful week so far! The Limassol Night (High) School, organized the aforementioned event focusing on two very special areas of Cyprus: the closed city of Famagusta and the Nicosia International Airport. While Famagusta is occupied by the Turkish forces, has been fenced and is frequently used as a bargaining card on the negotiating table, the Nicosia International Airport is actually in the UN Protected Area in the buffer zone close to the home of the UNFICYP. We usually refer to them as lifeless but in reality they are only deserted by humans as Mr Themos Demetriou correctly mentioned in his talk about the plan to redevelop the city of Famagusta. Indeed what both sites share is that the (unwilling) absence of the human element has created a void that was covered over the years by nature, both flora and fauna. The event, so well-organised by Assistant Head teacher Ms Clio Lyssiotou and Languages Teacher Ms Agathi Erotocritou, was under the auspices of the Minister of Education and Culture and was divided in two parts, separated by a live music break by a student band. The first part was about the Nicosia International Airport. The first speaker was Captain Marneros with an emotional talk, sharing his experience before and during that last civil flight to the Nicosia International Airport on the 20th of July 1974. While in London, he repeatedly reported back to his superiors in Cyprus what British media were reporting about the expected invasion, but they insisted to fly back to Nicosia, even without the scheduled stop in Rome. As the Captain, it was ultimately his decision and did that stop-over in Rome, hoping for a change in his orders, nonetheless to save a £50m Cyprus Airways aircraft (a SunJet Trident). The aircraft was basically travelling empty, with two families on board- a Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot- 7 passengers in total. The most fascinating and at the same tragic fact of his witness report is that during his approach in the Cypriot airspace he was able to spot on the radar the 6th US fleet off the coast of Pafos, Turkish ships off the coast of Kyrenia and asked for permission to fly over the Apostle Andreas peninsula in order to explore the situation further. There in the Famagusta gulf he saw the British fleet on standby to evacuate British nationals if need be. His last cry for aborting landing and returning to Rome was greeted by a refusal. He later found out that this refusal was given at gunpoint from a Greek military officer of the coup. The next talk was about the project with Dr Stelios Yiatros presented the rationale and scope of the project, what was expected by the students and what was the expected timeline. To conclude Dr Yiatros said that this is the first time in years a group of people is working to propose the redevelopment of the airport as a hub and the aim of the project is to commence this dialogue with whoever is interested to participate and help. The presentation can be found in the gallery seen here and can be downloaded as pdf below.
The Nicosia International Airport closed with a music break. Part II - Famagusta The second part of the event focused on the closed City of Famagusta, which has been empty of human influence for the past 40 years. Firsty Mr Simos Ioannou, Deputy Mayor of Famagusta described life in Famagusta prior to the invasion. This was followed by Mr Themos Demetriou talk about the Famagusta Redevelopment Plan, which is a plan for immediate action, should the opportunity arise to return to the city. Mr Demetriou, discussed the role of the government in this (provide guidelines and not prescribe) and paid particular attention to the need to record and monitor the deserted homes and infrastructure as well as how nature filled the void left by humans creating new ecosystems. The event ended by taking questions from the audience. One of them, by one of the crew members of Mr Marneros was particularly emotional saying that she would love to fly again out of that airport and Dr Yiatros responded that this is aligned with our aim and hopefully within the next few years we can see some of these proposal to go through.
This Wednesday was pivotal for the Groups. Finally, after long research, exposure to professionals and the visit to the airport, the students presented their progress, including some concrete results and analysis, to a panel of CUT coordinating team and external professionals. The guests were Michael Tyrimos and Andrea Katsavra. Michael is COO of Exelia Technologies, a technology company based in Cyprus and Andrea is an architect with experience on the design and construction of the Larnaca and Pafos airports. You can find more information on our mentors at the Facilitation page. Each group had a separate session, where they presented their progress for 15 minutes, followed by sometimes vivid discussions about certain aspects of their project for about 45 minutes. Each Group presented their concept in a very different way, but all showed great progress in most if not all the areas outlined in the brief. What is equally exciting is that all of the Groups integrated the existing terminal in different ways though-thus giving life back to a building, which was denied its future. As the students are preparing for the final stretch and submission, the CUT facilitation team will be meeting them once more to provide guidelines and advice before submission.
The coordinator was invited to present the progress of the project "Nicosia International Airport - The Return" at a remembrance event organised by the Limassol Night School at Haroupomyloi Cultural centre near the old port of Limassol. The event will be in Greek and will have talks about the Past and the Future of the city of Famagusta and the Nicosia International Airport. The event is on Thursday 27/3/2014.
The event is open to the public but you need to RSVP. Please see below for the invite. We'd love to see you there to discuss the opportunities that will arise from such developments. Last Wednesday (19/3) the student groups, accompanied by the project mentors and coordinator arrived at Foxtrot Gate near the Ayios Dometios roundabout. This is the first blog entry I am writing in first person, since this was an emotional experience for me too, as well as the students. This was not the first time I had passed that gate. In 1990, my father had a won a contract in Kokkinotrimithia and in the absence of a direct highway he was granted a pass to drive through the UN Protected Area enclosing the closed airport. I accompanied him on several occasions in this drive through the time and was mystified while driving the last stretch towards the Kokkinotrimithia Gate, to see the closed terminal and the abandoned aircraft on the left side. Yesterday, receiving the pass and entering the gate, those same feelings returned. Taking the turn on the left shortly after the gate and passing by the abandoned "Corner" restaurant, the British Forces NAAFI, the deserted Flight Information Centre, the Golf Club and finally arriving in that last stretch. There it was, as if no time had passed. As we drove towards the terminal, I noticed for the first time the emptied water fountains by its entrance. Finally the coach came to rest and stepped off next to the terminal for the first time. Everyone I had talked about the airport and was lucky enough to visit it pre-1974, shares the same story "..the cafeteria on the top floor overlooking the runway was magnificent! We used to go and have coffee there looking at the landings and take offs." as if it is a part of a collective memory. This time we had someone with us who could help us relive and imagine what the airport looked like operational. Meet Pantelis GeorgiouYesterday, we had the pleasure to have with us someone who had spent a large part of his career at the airport and was there in 1974 to see it closing down after the invasion. Mr Pantelis Georgiou is the former director of the Larnaca International Airport, having spent 40 years in Civil Aviation until his retirement in 1994. He is my mother's uncle and since we had lost our grandfather from her side very young, he acted as a grandfather figure to us, usually joking about model aeroplanes being born from the real jets. He was a graduate of the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia and on the 1st of January 1954 he joined the Department of Civil Aviation of the young Republic of Cyprus. Until that time, the old airport (which is located just south-east of the new terminal) was operated by Cyprus Airways, a then subsidiary of BOAC. He was initially responsible for signalling and fire safety during refuelling. In 1957 he was promoted to Airport Assistant, being responsible taxying aircraft and cleaning and later after training and other professional courses he became an airport ground operations supervisor. The job was hard, but he enjoyed it. "When you love what you do, you'll do a great job at it". He remembers the opening and move to the new terminal. "The new terminal looked brilliant but was not at all functional". He claims budget limitations forced designers to make significant cutbacks, hindering functionality. "There were only two ramps on the north and south of the terminal and passengers had to walk with a guide to go to the aircraft and vice versa. When there was a plane leaving or arriving, passengers would wait on the apron until it was gone or parked". Even though the airport was not a true hub it was frequently used for diverted traffic from flights going to neighbouring countries when the weather was bad. Having two non-parallel runways (main-1432 and secondary -0927) meant that even in high cross-winds aircraft could still land in the airport. He remembers that Cyprus Airways had a training aircraft made of canvas and when it was windy ground crew would stand in the run way and help it land. We could not go into the building since it had exposed asbestos as well as some architectural features had collapsed. Despite that, the main structural elements of the building seemed to be in satisfactory condition. We then started moving around the terminal. Right in front of us were the check in counters at a very close proximity to the front doors. "During the invasion we were asked by a Greek Military Officer to break the front glasses" he said. There was a major battle of the airport but the terminal was not directly hit. "What was hit was the intersection of the two runways-1432 and 0927, this meant that no aircraft could land and take off so amidst the fighting we brought concrete and compacting cylinders to fix that". As we turned around the building we were able to have a view of the high ceiling main room of the airport with skylights, through the broken glass of the north side facade. Although there was no electricity the room was well-lit, since skylights let the light of the sunny day in. On the left you could still see the posters from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation campaign. On the right there were the duty free shops and security while at the south end you can almost see the staircase that took you to the cafeteria/restaurant area. Our next stop was further north, past the ground operations offices to the deserted aircraft hangar. In front of it lied the Cyprus Airways Trident aircraft which made the last commercial flight landing to the airport. This was flight CY317 with Captain Marneros from London Heathrow. Mr Andros Eftasthiou of Is Not Gallery had taken some great recent photos of the then crew. These pictures can be found on the Useful Resources page of this site or Mr Michalis Christodoulou blog, who took an interview of Mr Efstathiou and Mr Marneros for Kathimerini. Returning back to the terminal you could see the big sign stating Nicosia International Airport, the first thing passengers would see as they landed on 1432, worn by time. Below this, was the public cafeteria balcony overlooking the runway. "Back then security was not that big of an issue, as it is now. Someone from the balcony could have easily given something to a person that had crossed security and vice versa" Mr. Georgiou said. As we walked across the west face from north to south, he showed us the VIP lounge, the customs next it, his office as ground operations officer, the runways transport office and finally the kitchen. Beyond the terminal on the south there were then small buildings for the airport trucks and ladders. The students questioned Mr. Georgiou about the refuelling system. "No such system existed back then, bowsers (fuel tankers) would come from nearby fuel stations", he said. Around the corner the south facade included the south passenger ramp, as well as a big external staircase leading to the cafeteria balcony. Shortly after this our visit came to an end and had to return back to Limassol. The students were quite excited with the experience and wished they could have visited this earlier. Leaving the airport and exiting the gate was quite melancholic. It took me 24 years to visit back and I only hope it will not take that long for my next visit. This is actually the essence of this project. By motivating and pushing to have more proposals of how the future will look like, it increases the probability of actually creating something positive. Next week the groups are having their second interim presentations, where they will show their progress and receive help from mentors. On Thursday the 27th I will be presenting the project at an event about the Nicosia Airport and Famagusta at Haroupomyloi Laniti in Limassol, organised by the Limassol Night School. If you are interested to participate you can find the invite here and RSVP as asked. You can find more pictures from the visit at the useful resources gallery. Feel free to download and use them by citing the name of the project (NIA-The Return. Cyprus University of Technology) I would like to express my gratitude to UNFICYP Captain Tomas Ciampor for coordinating and supporting our visit to the Nicosia International Airport and Mr Pantelis Georgiou, who despite his health problems, came eagerly along to share his experiences and help our students.
Last week's session (12/3) was a very important one, since the groups were exposed to real working professionals, each from a different discipline, sharing their knowledge and expertise voluntarily, on how to tackle this difficult multidisciplinary challenge. The first one to present was Dr Stefanos Anastasiou - Architect and Facade Engineer, who delivered a talk on techniques to break down the problem in different parameters in order to identify the key design constraints and necessary activities. He then walked the audience through this process by outlining a case study of a modern airport (Shenzen Bao'an International Airport), paying particular attention to the shell of the building facilities. Stefanos was followed by Dr Nicholas Kyriakides, an experienced structural engineer and researcher, who walked the teams through the main considerations when designing large span structures, focussing on the special needs of airport terminals. Nicholas stressed the importance of vibrations and loads pertinent to temperature variations in such structures. He ended his talk by showing and explaining various structural systems pertinent to airport terminals. The dynamic duo from Open Box/ Chrysalis LEAP, Paris Thomas and Deano Symeonides followed. Paris and Deano stressed that for any project, especially for large infrastructure projects, the right business model can make the difference in finding (or not finding) investment to proceed. Paris is a Strategyzer certified Business Model Canvas Trainer and reference to an example of how you can present your business model as a story was given through a video about ENERMAP's Business Model. Furthermore, tapping from their experience with Open Box, Paris and Deano mentioned the importance of team dynamics and balance in achieving a great outcome as a team After a 15 minute break to digest the information overload, each group sat for 35 minutes with each guest to discuss their projects. At the end of the 35 minute session, Groups rotated between specialists, asking questions and validating their assumptions and taking notes. During these meetings, the guest speakers gave students a taste of professional life, being inquisitive about progress and next steps. They all stressed the importance of good research and start synthesizing solutions, while at the same time validating hypotheses. Since this is a concept project, detailed design is not required but it is important to identify the key challenges and where possible offer potential solutions. The end of a very long day found students exhausted but satisfied for having a fruitful interaction with the guests. There's still a lot of work to be done, but a solid foundation is in place.
Coming next: Visiting the closed airport (19/3). Last Wednesday (5/3/2014) was the day of the first interim presentation. This was the first meeting with all Groups since they formed in the previous week. Their aim was to introduce each Group, present the Nicosia International Airport history and their initial plan in their effort to bring forward a proposal for the redevelopment of the site as an International Hub. The Group named "Regenerating Nicosia International Airport" presented first, followed by "Nicosia International Airport - Future Revives the Past" and "PEGASUS". During these 15 minute presentations the whole class observed the history of the airport from its early stages in the 1930s as a RAF station to sudden stop in 1974. During the same presentations the three project coordinators Stelios Liassides, Stefanos Kyriakou and Marios Marangou, outlined their Group's structure and their initial work plan. You will soon be able to view these presentation slides (in Greek) at each Groups website (see the links above). After the Groups' presentations, we had the pleasure to have the first Project guest. Myrto Lambrou, a freelance architect, delivered a talk on how to develop a concept for a project, bringing together a site's history with a successful new development. She approached this talk very pragmatically, by going through an example regarding a proposal for an urban park in Salonica, Greece. More importantly after her talk, each Group had individual briefing meetings/tutorial time with Myrto in order to help them set their projects to track, followed by a feedback/tutorial time with the facilitator CUT team.
Next week there will be more guest presentations and tutorials, this time for airport planning and facades, airport structural systems and business modelling. The Project: Nicosia International Airport - The Return was launched yesterday, 26th of February 2014. This project is part of the assessment of the module Integrated Design for Civil and Geomatics Engineers II for the undergraduate courses of Civil Engineering, Land Surveying and Geomatics at the Cyprus University of Technology. Despite being in termtime amidst classes, students in Groups of 12-13 will undertake the responsibility to come up with a strategic proposal for the redevelopment of the closed airport as an international aviation hub.
The project brief was greeted with excitement from the class. They first selected the management teams that will lead each Group and a draw was carried out to form Groups. Each Group will work independently and their progress will be monitored in weekly sessions till the final presentation in the beginning of April. This blog will monitor the progress of the project and report highlights of the student work and any other information relevant to the project. |
NIA - The returnThis blog will highlight the progress of the project and events related to the project, so stay tuned for more information. Archives
September 2016
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