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Athens, Greece
150m2
completed
2024
John Karahalios
Elisavet Plaini
Epikyklos Technical Construction
Nikos Papageorgiou














The project deals with the rehabilitation of a 150sp.m. apartment in the area of Kolonaki, Athens. It is located in a 1958 apartment building designed by Rennos Koutsouris, an architect associated with important modern buildings of the interwar period. This particular design follows the trend of his later period, when a more classicist and decorative flair reflected the direction of the time for the upscale urban apartment blocks.
This approach is evident in the particular apartment by how spaces are grouped and treated and the different attention to materials and detail. The spacious living areas and the bedrooms are visibly distinct from the kitchen and the auxiliary room. This is even more clear at the material level. The main areas have quality oak floors, decorative roof finishes, well designed wooden sliding doors and marble for the bathroom. On the contrary the secondary areas have a more simple and technical approach, with terrazzo floors and apparent lack of decoration.
According to the architectural study, the layout and the style of the apartment remains intact and the main aim of the intervention is to balance out the spatial dynamic of the main areas with the secondary ones.
More specifically, the existing floors, doors and windows in the living room and the bedrooms are preserved. For the additional storage needs two new structures are installed; a library for the living room and a composition of various uses, like glass displays, a desk and a bar, for the dining room. These wooden structures connect at a visual level the decorative features from the ceilings and the internal doors and create a unified whole that is inscribed within each room.
In the same manner, the main bathroom, although renovated completely, retains the original material direction through the use of big slabs of Nestos marble.
The material dichotomy that existed between the kitchen and the main rooms is being mitigated, thus reflecting the transition of the kitchen in contemporary living, from a secondary area to a vital space. The use of precious materials like Carrara marble for the countertops and grey Damasta marble for the backsplash underline this upgrade.
The basic architectural direction was to preserve all the interesting elements and materials, to accentuate the urban feeling of the apartment and to balance out the visual effect of every area, in such way as to reflect the changes in spatial values compared to the 1950s. And it is through the use of white throughout the apartment that every structure or detail is not an independent entity but a part of a unified narrative, the coexistence of contemporary way of living with the memory of the existing envelope.

Plan

Private | Public | Services

popaganda.gr
posted November 2, 2024