2009-2010

1st Prize in the category ‘Best built work of the years 2008-2010’,

Judges: Steven Holl, Finn Geipel, Panayotis Tournikiotis

This small house, which was renovated and expanded, was once part of a ‘green’ holiday suburb, which gradually turned into quite a densely-populated area, while still maintaining part of its greenery.

The original pre-war structure had already undergone several interventions, successive additions and heavy alterations of its original character.

The challenge consisted of installing new infrastructure, renovating, slightly expanding and ultimately achieving a unified result. The stone load-bearing structure was kept intact, the expansion was carried out using light materials, and the entire building was roofed in a uniform manner and given a clearly urban profile. The uniform style followed the simple geometrical design of the stone structural elements: the way the existing structure and the expansion were dealt with was based on the notion of a geometric game in which the type of load-bearing structure was not actually revealed but rather insinuated. The basic inspiration for the sun-oriented extension came from the traditional Athenian house: an elongated space made of light materials and large-sized glass partitions in front of the main stone building, in which various functions are performed. This idea is interpreted here with a more contemporary building detailing. Other sources of inspiration include the “International Style”, early modernism in Greece, De Stijl.