APARTMENT IN NEOCLASSICAL BUILDING

This is a renovation of an apartment in a neoclassical building of the interwar period, in Thessaloniki. The main intention was to make the minimum possible intervention in the architectural elements that refer to the character of the apartment, while at the same time adding a modern design language, through clean and simple forms, combined with the use of color.

The plaster decoration, wooden flooring and window frame typologies were kept in their original form, while at the same time used as references for the new rooms created. Due to the original layout, combined with the owners’ new needs, the kitchen had to be relocated next to the living area. In this way the two-room zone was placed on one side of the apartment, next to the entrance, while on the other side the bedroom, a guest office and the bathroom were repositioned. The most important change is the new position of the kitchen, which now has a central importance in the space, compared to its old position, which was cut off and placed at the back of the apartment, as its new layout unifies the living and dining room. The color of the kitchen comes to emphasize its importance, both as the core of the living area and as a new addition. The guest office space is placed parallel to the existing corridor of the apartment, using a double internal door with glass, so that when closed it allows external light to illuminate the corridor of the apartment and when opened the above space is unified with the rest of the apartment. The plaster frame around the perimeter of the two-room spaces continues into the bedroom and bathroom area, creating horizontal zones in the spaces, which are accentuated by the differentiation of colors.