DECA Architecture is an architectural team founded in 2001 by Carlos Loperena and Alexandros Vaitsos who met during their postgraduate studies at UC Berkeley. The team, compromised of 15 architects, is based in Athens. DECA has engaged in over 100 projects that vary in subject matter, location and scale: Having designed joysticks, buildings and territories in urban contexts and the countryside, the work of DECA aspires to stimulate the senses beyond the limits of familiarity.DECA has been exhibited in museums in Tokyo, Boston, Athens and London while in 2012, the ‘Bedrooms’ installation was part of the Greek entry in the Biennale of Venice. In parallel with its active architectural practice, DECA nurtures a research branch that is currently engaged with two basic questions: The transitioning to the Information Age is rendering the existing uses of buildings obsolete. How will we transform our underused urban environments to foster vibrancy, diversity and resilience in our cities?The climate emergency is creating warmer cities, scarcity of water, and impacting our food sovereignty. What innovative strategies can shift the paradigm towards a sustainable future?
Statement
“What can we learn from the bottom up water-management traditions that existed on Sifnos, at a time when touristic development is going faster than the bearing capacity of the island? Our installation will project -in real-time and real scale – the volume of water Sifnos requires, in juxtaposition with the volume of water resources available.”