Οn (the apartment block) 

The residential structure of the Athenian apartment block dominates the Attica basin. From Omonoia to Keratsini and from the interwar era till today. Two indisputable facts hover around this dominance: the arising structural uniformity that has been characterizing Athens for a century and its reinforced-concrete life that is set to a maximum of 100 years. Time is up: Athens is entering -amidst a crisis- a crucial for its primal matter century. The dense, mature city that Kenneth Frampton described as the par excellence modern one, is currently transpiring -through the subsequent historic superposings of a structural type- a sense of antiquity, of uniform aging. In Keratsini, the Corten steel residence is over-set on an apartment block that is persistently being built for half a century, in 3 stages, through 4 different building permits. The triangular prism is superimposed on the existing scheme, pursuing integration through diversity. Their structural cooperation calls for the composite management of the prism’s structure so that the underlying one may bear the –inevitably- lighter addition. Likewise inevitably, Athens enters a century of extensions, conversions, reconstructions: the economic contraction and its structural aging naturally impose them. The new intervening extensions may initiate the playful stirring of a sleeping, mass, historically established, enchanting uniformity.   

An existing four-storey block of flats, built in 1970 in three stages, with 4 different town planning permits, calls for an upward expansion. The section is triangular, the residence is perfectly adapted to the demands of the ideal solid: A prism lies in the existing, seeking integration through difference. A southern, elongated, open space is the main opening of the solid which remains rigid. The static cooperation of new and existing requires the cohesive management of the prism bearer while maintaining the sense of aggressive position on the receptive, flat terrace.The point elation of the height seems to correctly fill the gap between the blocks of flats. What, of course, seems strange in the images being displayed is the big cantilever, the circumvention of the building line. How is this feasible? The Building Regulation does not allow it. After the phone call for the possible assignment of the expansion, the first thought was how to avoid it, what is the best possible excuse. Until the on-site encounter reveals that part of the plot that was given to the road in 1980, it was return back. Three meters in addition, addition in height but fortunately and by extension.

Οn (the apartment block) 

The residential structure of the Athenian apartment block dominates the Attica basin. From Omonoia to Keratsini and from the interwar era till today. Two indisputable facts hover around this dominance: the arising structural uniformity that has been characterizing Athens for a century and its reinforced-concrete life that is set to a maximum of 100 years. Time is up: Athens is entering -amidst a crisis- a crucial for its primal matter century. The dense, mature city that Kenneth Frampton described as the par excellence modern one, is currently transpiring -through the subsequent historic superposings of a structural type- a sense of antiquity, of uniform aging. In Keratsini, the Corten steel residence is over-set on an apartment block that is persistently being built for half a century, in 3 stages, through 4 different building permits. The triangular prism is superimposed on the existing scheme, pursuing integration through diversity. Their structural cooperation calls for the composite management of the prism’s structure so that the underlying one may bear the –inevitably- lighter addition. Likewise inevitably, Athens enters a century of extensions, conversions, reconstructions: the economic contraction and its structural aging naturally impose them. The new intervening extensions may initiate the playful stirring of a sleeping, mass, historically established, enchanting uniformity.   

An existing four-storey block of flats, built in 1970 in three stages, with 4 different town planning permits, calls for an upward expansion. The section is triangular, the residence is perfectly adapted to the demands of the ideal solid: A prism lies in the existing, seeking integration through difference. A southern, elongated, open space is the main opening of the solid which remains rigid. The static cooperation of new and existing requires the cohesive management of the prism bearer while maintaining the sense of aggressive position on the receptive, flat terrace.The point elation of the height seems to correctly fill the gap between the blocks of flats. What, of course, seems strange in the images being displayed is the big cantilever, the circumvention of the building line. How is this feasible? The Building Regulation does not allow it. After the phone call for the possible assignment of the expansion, the first thought was how to avoid it, what is the best possible excuse. Until the on-site encounter reveals that part of the plot that was given to the road in 1980, it was return back. Three meters in addition, addition in height but fortunately and by extension.