House D

Residence with garden in Holargos 

Rehabilitation project involving the restructuring and expansion of an old house. The house is a volumetric exercise of solid faces and punctual openings, nestled in a corner of a residential neighborhood with diverse housing typologies and varying heights.

The decision to keep a low raising building with a garden in a dense urban context is an exercise that’s achieves minimum impact of the new and reuse of the structural core of the old. This 1960s house has donated its solid concrete structure, its foundations along with the footprint to this new built.

Portions of the slabs are cut to create double-height spaces, and a new steel structure is added on top, connected to the foundations and reinforced for the region's high seismic activity. The surrounding buildings to the northwest and southwest rise high with large balconies that compromise the privacy of the house. In response, the house becomes an opaque volume.

Project details

Project: Restructuring and Extension of a Residence in Cholargos, Athens

Architectural design: Cometa Architects Faidra Matziaraki, Victor Gonzalez Marti

Design team: Faidra Matziaraki, Victor Gonzalez Marti, Nicolas De Leon, Alvaro Portoles

Interior design: Faidra Matziaraki, Niki Chronopoulou

Structural design: Georgios Tsalikidis

E/M design: Agathi Balampani

Bioclimatic & Energy design: Despina Georgiadou, Markos Kefalas Multibeton

Landscape: Faidra Matziaraki, Victor Gonzalez Marti

Lighting design: Faidra Matziaraki, Victor Gonzalez Marti

Exterior lighting design: Mina Matzari LUUN

Construction: Georgios Tsalikidis

Supervision: Georgios Tsalikidis, Faidra Matziaraki

Photos: Giorgos Sfakianakis