Temporary living spaces along the Green Line in Nicosia: aMAZElab
Today, the Green Line is just a “mindscape” through which politics, the media, the economy and high and low culture unfold their weak, yet invasive narratives, through which Turkish and Greek Cypriots still recognise their identity in separation and difference, while leading to the proliferation of an indecisive political class that cannot solve a problem now reduced to nothing more than a simulacrum of itself. The real question is how long will the Cypriots continue to imagine themselves divided. Meanwhile, on both sides of the Green Line, autonomous, spontaneous activities have sprung up, and created an autonomous, experimental world. All manner of constructions, provisional elements, found objects and recycled materials find room along Nicosia’s dividing line. A type of “creative” map can be traced in Europe’s only remaining divided capital. From simple recreational activities and small artisanal activities, to military surveillance posts and independent trading activities. Mobile places and passing places, like the two hotels that have emerged, symmetrically: one on the Greek Cypriot side, and another on the Turkish Cypriot side.

Buffer zone:Theoharis David
When considering the phenomenon of the buffer zone, which is nothing new, we could also defend an argument that runs counter to the deeply rooted belief that buffer zones always act as barriers, or constructed, implicit walls, against all human interaction and communication. In other words, the space and place described across the media as a border which really exists on the territory, or in consciousness, act as a theatre of operations for permanent or makeshift architecture, which is associated with replacement versus displacement, connectivity and transition versus disruption and isolation.
The negative effects of the buffer zone in a rural or urban setting can be obliterated if the vestiges of their physical manifestations and the spatial voids are allowed to be preserved as artefacts around which non-permanent architectural interventions can be created.
There are many examples of these architectural phenomena and, often, unintentional acts of “architecture without architects” which fill the void, create the artefact/vestige or challenge the physical presence of the buffer zone in different locations around the world, such as, for instance, Korea, Israel, Cyprus and Berlin.