360º Apartment Building

The plot is in Patras, on the intersection of Aghiou Konstantinou and Aoou streets. In terms of location (on the city/sea boundary and the waterfront throughway), scale and proportions, it made to key demands: integrating the building within the urban fabric, and maintaining visual continuity and contact with the sea. '360°' is four-storey high and raised on pilotis. It comprises thirty apartments and commands a direct view of the sea. There is an underground car-park and a rooftop belvedere. It redefines residential models in the modern urban landscape, on the boundary of city and sea. It introduces a contemporary outlook to the Greek 'polukatoikia' concept, refashions city/sea boundaries, and seeks to engage with its urban setting. It results from a concatenation of linear thrusts and perspectives generated by the site, and deploys its scale, which impacts value, without the least bit of embarrassment. The building is articulated as a system of linear features, running through the length of the plot, parallel to the sea. Constituting the building's identity, the putative lines of the floor slabs dominate the main elevation and accentuate its dynamics. On the boundaries between interior/exteriors, vertical elements all but disappear. The breadth of the building, in conjunction with the treatment of its vertical elements, lend the slab 'lines' an appearance of blades slashing through it. The view from within is unrestricted, almost theatrical: mirrored in the elevation's glass surfaces, it affords privacy to the apartments.

Meanwhile, the building's linear demarcations act as a visual reference in the town's prospect. Functioning as an interstice, the building turns into a 'comb', filtering and reflecting views and perspectives. Nature and city, fragmentary 'instants', 'captured' on its expanse, everchanging through evening and morning reflect the beat of the city. By means of a building with 'its ear to the ground', 'gazing', and 'gazed at'.

Outdoors, alternate strips of plantation and soil follow the lines of the building. Since the building is raised above ground-level, the strips form a carpet spread over the entire plot. The vertical dimension of the building is denoted by four sets of stairs and the 'upright gardens' in the balconies. Come sundown it is further accentuated by the linear lighting system outdoors (running at right angles to the main design axes). Construction materials include reinforced concrete for the load bearing structure, exposed concrete, glass plates for balcony railings on the main façade, and metal strips with perforated steel sheet for the remaining railings.