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Architects: RS Sparch
- Area: 14000 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Yiorgis Yerolymbos
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Manufacturers: Geberit, Novamix, Schneider Electric, Rados SA, Alumil SA, Apostolakos Giannopoulos General Partnership - Solid Solution, Doutsiouk Bros Private Company, EGREEN, H.Mitrogiannis-I. Tsiamas Industrial and Commercial SA, Isomat Industrial and Commercial SA, Novamix Domohimiki Industrial and Commercial SA, Plaka, Remav, Smeka SA, Technical SA
“We wanted the building to open up to the plaza, to the view. To look ethereal. Αs if the slabs with their sharp corners and soft curves fly, in their continuous movement from floor to floor.”
eLement is getting its name from the L that shapes it. It is a building that talks about the movement. Poetic intentions, geometricity, materiality, and nature work together to this end.
The client wanted an office building of high environmental standards. The plot was challenging. It was facing three streets, but it was divided in its middle by another property with a building. The L shape, already decided by the brief, was thus given.
Having to solve the problem of how to make the entrance placed in the corner of the L visible, we decided to empty a significant part of the ground floor in order to create a generous diagonal passage. In this way, not only we connected front and back and made the entry prominent, but also, we gave emphasis to public space by creating a plaza and a garden, and we focused on making the natural element central to our concept.
eLement is organized on the ground floor and four floors above ground for offices, and two-story underground parking. The internal layout is simple and straightforward, with a connecting lobby in the middle to allow for different tenant occupancy. The restaurant is projected as an independent soft-curved glass pavilion. Its projected concrete canopy intensifies the diagonal passage and creates a linear boundary on one side of the plaza. A reflective ceiling ‘doubles the height’ of the passage while water surfaces invigorate it. Planted roofs on the 1st and the 4th floor provide the users with valuable open-air space.
Our architectural intention for an ethereal form is expressed through the composition of concave concrete slabs/planes that project or retreat on the different floors. Movement can be seen as ‘real’; as such, it is expressed in the vertical, pierced aluminum louvers that follow the movement of the sun during the course of the day, or in the light breeze that invigorates the plants on the roofs and the garden. Movement as an architectural intention, though, can also be seen as ‘poetic’ or ‘phenomenal’ in the choreography of the projecting concave slabs and their sharp corners, or the people’s reflections on the passage’s reflective ceiling. Simple architectural gestures and choice of materials (fair-faced concrete with white cement anodized pierced aluminum for the louvers, and the semi-transparent second skin of the double-height ground floor, or the semi-glossy aluminum for the ceiling and the lobby wall finishes), create an elegant atmosphere.
eLement is a LEED Platinum building.
