Urban Stripes

Urban stripes were designed when the crisis was not evident in Athens and it was finished when crisis was on its peak. It is a rather flexible building that provides solutions for different people and different living scenarios as it was always the case for decades in Athens when the 'polykatoikia' was an interesting experiment of social mixture and complexity of functions usually following the hierarchy of wealth from bottom to top, distributing office spaces on the first floors, local retail on the ground floor, residential on middle and upper floors. This building embraces differentiation in contrast with sameness and to this is totally contradicting 'polykatoikia' where there was a repetition of an identical floor.

Apartments, all different, are defined through their living scenario, size, position, plan, section and their view to Acropolis. Urban fabric is being filtered and privacy becomes important. By using linearity that creates a direct relation to the close by Zenetos 'Fix' building, the façade is designed through linear openings on different heights that show or hide different pieces of the urban scenery. Juxtaposed to the linearity the cantilevered balconies act as perforated volumes to a larger linear perforated building that blends to the existing linear Athenian context. The back façade design is using elements of the almost invisible, neglected and intriguing Athens back facades of the 60's and 70's. Using colored laminated glasses we proposed a different view to these urban ruins.

The project has developed an unusual for Greece, method of construction to reduce energy consumption. Instead of the usual brick- insulation- brick Greek method it was constructed from outside to inside with exterior insulation, cement-board, plasterboard. Another break-through proposal was to use VRV air-condition system to heat and cool the flats. site: 173 m² building: 865 m²