A somewhat meandering train of thought aiming to explore the necessity and utility in creating and developing sets of ‘peripheral’ structures and facilities to be used as urban tools, in order to target issues that have arisen or have become accentuated as a result of political and social processes. Presenting a set of examples of urban tool units either belonging to the vast and varied category of temporary shelter, or adhering to the concept of public space reinvestment, in an attempt to explore and interconnect issues such as precarity, transience and the need for shelter to the concepts of space reappropriation, the creation of contextualised infrastructure and the notion of welfare structures. Raising awareness of the existence of parallel realities within cityscapes and the gaps created in urban continuity and functionality. Raising awareness of the need for architectural proposals to not just create structures, but to initiate discussion and expand concepts in order to enable and facilitate alternative uses of urban spaces or utilities, while aiming to enhance exchange between the different strata within societies, enabling buildings/structures to become answers. A brief navigation through the urban context and the controversies surrounding the efforts to address needs imposed by transformative factors (mass migration, immigration, increase in the numbers of the shelterless) resulting from economic policies applied during the last third of the previous century and the subsequent globalisation. Acknowledging the fact that instead of real political solutions being sought, more often than not, political obligations are being transferred to the design realm. Questioning the possible existence of preemptive architecture, inasmuch as it is intended to prevent social iniquity and understanding that, as a rule, architects arrive ‘after the fact’, called upon to confront [already] established social situations/patterns.
 
 
Eleanna Horiti, a DPLG architect, founded her practice in Athens in 1997. Her work encompasses many aspects of the design process. She aims to challenge feelings and practices of civic responsibility, to explore the desire for control and the role of the architect as manipulator. In 2013 she created Elementary Particles, a testing ground for micro-scale projects. She studied Architecture (Paris-la Seine/UP9) and Fine Arts (ENSBA Paris) in France.