Adaptive reuse of a 1950s’ small hotel
into an office building, Kefalari, Athens
The reconstruction of a small sixty-year-old hotel (4 floors of 340 sq.m. area each) into a state-of-the-art office building.
While the existing volume had to be retained, the old structure would be fully reconfigured. All internal columns were to be removed, the leveling and height of the floors were to be changed, a conference room would be added on the roof along with a roof garden, creating a fifth floor to the building. An additional underground area would be constructed adjoining to the existing basement, to offer more parking space under the street-level garden.
A key design factor was the re-designation of the back of the building as the new principal façade, to include the main entrance and access to parking spaces. Facing a large garden, the new façade was reconfigured with the addition of an added-on metallic structure to form a series of balconies with a vertical screen of climbing greenery that topped off with a roof pergola adjoining the roof-garden’s new conference room.
A curtain wall formed of vertical wooden blades would wrap around the rest of the facades, to offer shade and privacy in the interior. Modern simplicity to be applied to detailing and materials.
Building permit for this total remodeling of the building has been obtained, however the project did not proceed. The building was eventually renovated as a contemporary “boutique” hotel.