8 modern apartment buildings in Athens

At the complex H_15 created by 314 Architecture Studio, there are 3 apartment buildings - Photo by 314 Architecture Studio

8 Modern Residential Complexes in Athens that change what we knew about Apartment Buildings

Different approaches to the classic floor plan, ultra-modern character, and architectural fluidity, in constructions for the current needs of a society that changes.

Modern apartment buildings, such as those presented here, look like architectural water lilies on the lake of cement that the city of Athens is. And, over the last few years, they are growing. In fact, we can observe in them a new morphology, with emphasis on geometric curves.

"We anticipate organic elements like these to be able to provide some functional applications. Like lifting the sidewalls in such a way as to protect privacy. Or to protect from the wind and offer shading". The words belong to Pavlos Hatziangelidis, head of 314 Architecture Studio. Especially after the pandemic, the modern apartment buildings also host apartments that also function as home offices, with common areas that offer opportunities for socialization - with an obvious reference to the Oxygen of Pieris Architects.

"Certainly the structure of the apartment building has changed because society has changed and so has the user of the apartment building", says Konstantinos Lambrinopoulos of Club Architecture. Emphasizing that the difference in the morphology of the buildings must be passed on to the interiors as well. Thus, the misunderstood world of the apartment building acquires new philosophy. In order for this to happen, of course, "futurism and nostalgia" must coexist in the mind of the architect - as Dimitris Tsigos of Omniview Design characteristically puts it.

"In architecture there is something related to the reality of making the world a little more like your dream: to get ideas, giving them a physical substance," adds Marialena Tsolka of Tsolka Architects. "We see our work as the art of creating the framework for life. So, the more exciting the context, the more amazing the experiences you can create. " So, inside the apartment buildings, there are precious moments in the lives of different people. The following are the pictures of these buildings and their descriptions, as formulated by the respective architectural office.

Complex H-15 also called "Domes of Eternity" is in Voula, 160 meters from the sea - Photo by 314 Architecture Studio

Τhrough mirrors the H_15 bets on visual multiplications of composition and city - Photo by 314 Architecture Studio

H_15/Cuevas de la Eternidad (314 Architecture Studio)

The project H15 or Domes of Enternity of 314 Architecture Studio is located in Voula, on a plot of 3.151 square meters, at a distance of 160 meters from the sea. In H_15 they manage to coexist three apartment buildings in a single ensemble, through sculptural tiles.

The three cores rise to 18 meters and host 20 homes. These cores, although independent in terms of their accessibility, are connected and integrated with thin monolithic slabs that have holes and cuts between the cores, creating patios and indoor gardens. The three-part composition is transformed into a single sculpture with the creation of arched formations. The arches are overturned and mutated in their archetypal form, giving the composition an aura of a piece of sculpture and the illusion of movement.

In the H_15 mirrors undertake the visual multiplication of elements of the composition - Photo by 314 Architecture Studio

The exterior walls and structural elements are lined with mirrors that make them disappear and in their place appear visual multiplications of the composition and the city. With the disappearance of the structural elements the construction seems to be floating in the air, with the white plates creating multiple reflections of the synthesized elements. Water, in particular, has been used both in the ground floor dwellings of the three apartment buildings - in a dialogue with the developing gardens - and in the dwellings of the upper levels.

Credits:

Architectural office: 314 Architecture Studio
Location: Voula, Attica, Greece
Team: Pavlos Chatziangelidis, Giota Chala, Eleftheria Fatsea, Antonis Sarris, Katerina Palantzi, Eleni Zygogianni, Anna Stagaki, Dimitris Panagiotou, Andrianna Triantaphyllopoulou, Irini Bouliou, Patavrodon Sapiroupi, Dimitra Steripou
Static Design: Fotini Karagianni
Mechanical Design: Stefanos Karagiannis
Construction: QG Investments - Apodiakos
Plot area: 3,150.84 sq.m.
Design year: 2019
Condition: Under construction
Type: Apartment building

The luxurious apartment of apartment building BUTterFLY were designed by architestScripta - Photo by architectScripta

Mindful of the invisible, seeking the feeling of floating in space, architectScripta designed the new, luxurious apartments of the BUTterFLY apartment building in exclusive collaboration with Nexus Properties – Real Estate Development.

Keeping with their distinctive design identity, architectScripta experiments here with the sense of levitation through morphological objects. On the edges e.g. of the suspended prestressed slabs around a fluid contour, black balloons are placed as a building skin, accentuating the edges of the apartment building. The architects follow advanced design techniques and sophisticated manufacturing technologies to achieve the feeling of a glossy balloon, which hugs the rough concrete slab with a sense of elevation and continuity.

Indentations in the slab direct the gaze from the building to the outside through multiple optical escapes, on each level of the apartment building. Its general outline remains fluid, forming characteristic indentations that diagrammatically affect the typical apartment building. The purpose of the design research is, through the processing of the form, to shape new typologies of apartments beyond the clichés dictated by the so far "typical" apartment building with its typical size and shape.

BUTterFLy aims in creating a feeling of elevation In BUTterFLY new typologies for the modern apartment Photo by architectScripta building were sought - Photo by architectScripta

Characteristic is the neck-corridor that joins the private parts of the penthouse with the public part of the house like a path of purification, offering the user a special, everyday experience. Through this search for new typologies for the modern apartment building, new values that have emerged recently, such as e.g. the view and the privacy. There is also a shift towards the upgraded standard of living, the modern needs, and the particularities of each user. It is therefore a building with an anthropocentric character, which is organized based on the current needs of urban living.

In the context of a flat architectural ontology, where everything is considered an Object – even the spatial experience or the visitor/receiver – architectScripta defies the traditional power of scale and use. For each project, the initial design proposals act as abstract machines: as generic diagrammatic Forms, which are adapted in multiple ways to each Site/plot and continue to evolve guided by use and scale to shape the final architectural object/product.

architectScripta is an architectural platform founded in 2007 in New York by Nefeli Hatziminas and Nikos Papavasileiou. It is based on experimental design techniques and digital construction technology. They have done projects in Athens and Manhattan. Nefeli has taught at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and worked for her professor Bernard Tschumi at Columbia University. Nikos studied and has taught at the National Technical University of Athens. The office's works have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, London, Mumbai, the city of Pune in India, and of course Athens.

Having an exclusive collaboration with Nexus Properties – Real Estate Development, architectScripta implements its projects in Athens with pioneering buildings located at the cutting edge of design technology and digital construction. In direct contact with the suppliers for the necessary value engineering, but mainly with the support of Nexus Properties, they manage to match the project schedule and budget with the application of the most modern construction technology at the building scale.

Nexus Properties is a real estate development company whose vision is to change the Greek market through a pioneering architectural approach and provide high-level services to its clients. They channel their experience and technical expertise into creating buildings of unique aesthetics and functionality, which aim to offer their users a unique spatial experience of luxury and security.

"The Wave" of Potiropoulos & Partners presents a dynamic form that looks as if it is pulsating - Photo by Potiropoulos & Partners

The Wave (Potiropoulos & Partners)

The building adjoins the eastern boundary of the Glyfada Golf Course. During the composition, the organization of two connected volumes, in a single structure, parallel to the long side of the plot, which interacts with the phenomena of the place, was approached. The topography of the wider area is reminiscent of a "wave table" that is constantly transforming, sometimes forming earthly pleated forms and sometimes conversing with the continuous movement of the sea. The design renders the three-dimensional processing of these natural undulations, presenting a dynamic form that seems to pulsate.

The central theme of the composition was the manipulation of the boundaries that prioritize movements, attitudes, and qualitative differences. The near and far view, the small and the large scale, and also the transition from the natural element to the built to establish a set of interactive relationships, are the main factor in the formation of the architectural editorial. Thus, following the landscape panorama, the internal structure lists different but interrelated priorities of views and spatial roles. The organizational approach is based on the dialogue between the building and its environment, classifying its interior into areas that are more public or others more private, into extroverts or introverts, into "every day" or "extraordinary", corresponding to the gradations of view and space.

The architectural syntax of The Wave rests on a set of interactive relationships. Photo: Potiropoulos & Partners

In this way, the building emerges as a mediator between the user and the city: a field on which different avenues of exploration meet. The microcosm that is born offers a complex experience, stimulating sensations and emotions that correspond to the atmosphere of the moment. In such a "journey", experiences and places intersect sometimes as parallel events and sometimes as opposites. In general, using a simple construction expression, an earthly material (the marble) was chosen to monolithically clad the shell, as the architectural manipulation explores its texture, its color, and its reaction to light.

The Wave is based on a philosophy that goes beyond the established approach of the clearly defined architectural object. Photo: Potiropoulos & Partners

In the era we live in, an issue of "flexibility" arises in architecture, in the sense of the transition from a current situation - where we perceive the building with "conventional" data - to a future one, where it will operate based on parameters unknown to us, due to the rapid development of science and technology. All this offers fertile ground for thinking that we are moving towards an architecture with an undefined profile, which we have not yet encountered. It is an architecture that goes beyond the established approach of the clearly defined architectural object, negotiating with the fundamental concept of "evolution".

"The Wave" thus offers an opportunity to explore possible relationships and proportions introduced into design by other, more dynamic systems of organization. The conversation of the building with the natural and urban landscape suggests here an unexpected assimilation of differences and similarities, related to the familiar and the unfamiliar. Thus, metaphorically as well as factually, a form "in motion" emerges, which balances all these relationships highlighting the overall logic of the design.

In Koukaki, Klab Architecture's Urban Stripes complex reuses elements from typical Athenian apartment buildings and distinctly modern buildings. Every floor is different in Urban Stripes and every apartment answers different life questions and scenarios. Photos: Panos Kokkinias

Urban Stripes (Klab Architecture)

Urban Stripes is located in Koukaki, in an area with typical Athenian apartment buildings, but also with points of reference in modern architecture, such as the Fix by architect Zenetos and the Acropolis Museum by architect Tschumi. By reusing elements from all these buildings, a new look of apartment building is introduced. The apartments (mostly two-storey) are redefined thanks to the original filtering of light, but also the relationship with the view and the neighboring buildings. Furthermore, although the typology of linearity is followed, the opening-balcony association is contrasted.

The typical Athenian block of flats uses the same facade on every floor, right up to the penthouses: with linear, narrow balconies running across the facade, while rectangular vertical openings are repeated identically, regardless of the floor they are on or the view they have. Using the linearity that characterizes the Zenetos building in its openings, but also the balconies of the neighboring buildings, the appearance of Urban Stripes is made up of strongly linear openings at different heights, which reveal or hide pieces of the urban landscape. Opposite to the linearity are the balconies, like cantilevered volumes.

Urban Stripes responds to the needs of a current urbanism, different from that of the 1960s and 1970s. Photo: Panos Kokkinias

Today's urbanism has different needs than those of the 1960s and 1970s, and the concept of view is defined by the pursuit of privacy alongside the choice to view the urban landscape. Furthermore, the terraces are defined as expansion cores, but due to the location on the low floors, their extent is limited, as Veikou Street is a rather troublesome street due to traffic. In a gray city, the intense white of the face stands out. The perforation of the balconies follows the pattern of thickening and thinning that the openings also present.

The first floor differs from the rest in terms of use, but also in terms of appearance, just like in the Acropolis Museum building. The back view, on the other hand, confronts the gray, abandoned, invisible aspect of the capital. Here again the concept of filtering is used, achieved by viewing through colored glass panes of different colors.

Following forms of the past used differently, the lost aesthetics of the old Athenian apartment buildings are highlighted. The cylindrical staircase and irregular windows are reused as a contemporary depiction of the almost random aspect of the uncovered spaces of Athens. Each floor is different and each apartment answers other questions and life scenarios.

With the scaling of the height, a view of the Acropolis is also achieved, which from a part becomes the whole. The organization interpretations and requirements meet the old type of penthouse and the retreat of the volume from the fifth floor and above. Penthouses with single balconies have a separate treatment, while single glazing creates the main view towards the Parthenon.

Project Title: Urban Stripes

Location: Veikou, Koukaki, Athens

Main architects: Klab Architecture – Konstantinos Labrinopoulos

Design team: Enrique Ramírez, Veronika Vassiliou, Elena Skorda

Client: i-land development

Construction: Future Constructions

Dates of study: 2010

Construction dates: 2011-2012