Residential building at Filopappou | Dimitris Thomopoulos Architects

The building is located at the foot of the hill Philopappos, facing a small park in contact with the western part of the ring road in Ano Petralona. The area previously a refugee settlement consists of small plots and low, in contact constructions. It is a special intersection, dense urban fabric at one side and undisturbed natural Athenian landscape at the other. Building program requested by the owner company required two houses. Main choice was the development of each on three levels incorporating a substantial outdoor space. The first on basement, ground floor and first floor with a garden on the back and the second on the second and third floor with direct access to the green roof. The concept was affected by processing four main issues. The first was the close proximity and visual contact with the building we had designed for the same company two years ago with the same approximate size and building program. The buildings had to develop a dialectic relationship, share expression, assembly and materials characteristics but at the same time vary. The second was the highly oblique shape of the plot. The building is organized by constructing a solid volume of reinforced concrete which receives the obtuse angles of the plot and incorporates auxiliary functions and vertical movements. This leaves an orthonormal zone which incorporates living spaces with maximum natural lighting, ventilation and views to the surroundings. The third issue was the development of multiple relationships with the outdoors. The roof is planted continuing in a way the vegetation of the hill, the living rooms open across their width to outdoor spaces bringing the view of the hill into the interior and the natural-like garden at the back provides similar relationships to the spaces looking at the back of the building. Finally, the materiality of the building expresses its functions. The functional areas of the houses defined by both the elements of exposed concrete frame of the building and by integrating and hiding ancillary functions within white wooden constructions that can alter the spaces use. Associates architects: Nikoletta Kanellou, Annie Roussou, Loukia Lhomme, Athanasia Psaraki