Terminal, Limassol

It already seems a long time ago that architects were fascinated by cruise ships and ocean liners, impressed by their abstraction and purity of form. Today, as in the 1920s when Le Corbusier wrote his 'Vers une architecture', ports are perhaps the only places that combine all the elements of that characteristic atmosphere: vast horizontal spaces of temporariness and flow where machines move slowly but efficiently in an environment dominated by huge steel and concrete constructions.

In June 2004, Nicosia-based irwin.kritioti.architecture won a local competition with their design for a cruise terminal in the port of Limassol. The Port Authorities organized the competition as part of a masterplan to strengthen the port's role in the European infrastructural network and cruise tourism. Construction is expected to begin in January 2008 and to be completed in June 2010, in time for the holiday season.

The competition brief contained three main requirements: clear programmatic solutions that organize the different flows and handle customs control, passport inspection and security; programmatic flexibility and the possibility for expansion; and the creation of a landmark for the port and the city itself.

Irwin, Kritioti and Markou's terminal building, sited on the port's eastern dock, sets up a direct relation between the city and the port with a single architectural gesture. The terminal's linear form consists of rhythmically repeated elliptical shells that open up towards the city and the centre of the port. The shells act as channels that direct the flows of passengers from the ships to the city and vice versa, shaping the common place of arrival and departure. These large-scale structures evoke an industrial character that is in keeping with the atmosphere of the port. At the same time, the design delivers a landmark building that resists easy formal classification.

In this particularly disputatious part of the Mediterranean, cruise traffic never remains the same. As Dickon Irwin says, 'cruise profiles, border agreements and customs controls are subject to developments; classification, segregation and flow of passengers will not remain fixed throughout the life cycle of the building. Both outer shell and inner environment will therefore have to be prepared to adapt.' The interior can be reprogrammed up to a certain level and the terminal can be extended by adding new shell elements in 'an organic evolution of adding forms,' Irwin continues, 'similar to a coral adding more branches, or a series of soap bubbles multiplying. In this sense it could keep growing indefinitely.'