2026 marks twenty years since I crossed the threshold of the School of Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens: with barely any idea of the field beyond the drawing required for the Panhellenic entrance examinations, and with great curiosity about what would follow. NTUA proved to be a demanding yet profoundly formative world, one that laid the foundations not only for my professional trajectory but also for the way I perceive space, the city, and society.

I came to appreciate the significance of my studies at NTUA most fully when I found myself abroad. Through comparison with students from other universities and countries, I became aware both of the solid knowledge and compositional frameworks I had acquired — particularly in modernist architecture — and of the limits of my exposure to contemporary international theoretical and interdisciplinary debates. This awareness became a motivation for further inquiry and development.

Although I did not pursue architectural practice in the traditional sense, my career has remained closely connected to the discipline. Through a research and academic path I deepened my engagement with urban design, theoretical approaches to spatial development, and computational spatial analysis. Today I work in the field of digital design and spatial data analysis at an architectural and urban design practice in London, where my work combines geospatial analysis, design thinking, and the application of technological tools to translate complex data into evidence-based decisions. I collaborate with architects, urban planners, and public and private sector bodies on matters of resource management, neighbourhood regeneration, and strategic planning. In parallel, I coordinate research and development activities, participating in internationally funded programmes and bridging academic knowledge with applied architectural practice.

Many of my research interests, however, were born during my years at NTUA, through courses and teaching that left a lasting mark on me. Among the most memorable were the urban and spatial design and planning courses with Eleni Chaniotou and Eirini Klabatsea, the residential design studio with Valentini Karvountzis, the special morphology course with Elena Konstantinidou and Stavros Gyftopoulos, as well as my encounter with the work of Jan Gehl, Bill Hillier, and Juliette Hanson on the socio-spatial analysis of public space in the context of my research thesis. These experiences and insights prompted me to pursue postgraduate studies in urban design, where I deepened my engagement with informal settlements, mass housing, and the study of urban working-class housing. I joined the Space Syntax Laboratory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where I completed my doctoral dissertation on the morphology of workers’ settlements and the wider urban and planning environment, drawing on methods of archival research, space syntax analysis, geospatial modelling, and computational data processing.

Among my most cherished memories remains the educational field trip to Kythera, as part of the course on Architectural Analysis of Traditional Buildings and Ensembles. It was there that I understood, perhaps for the first time, that architecture is not only about form but about the life that unfolds within and around it. The encounter with the sparse local population, the ruined settlements, and the wild landscape — as well as the bonds formed with fellow students from Greece and abroad — remind me to this day that NTUA was not merely a place of learning, but an environment of deeply human formation.