D Flat is a top-floor apartment renovation in Vouliagmeni, Athens, set within a home open on three sides. In the existing layout, the main living areas faced a single direction, leaving the depth of the apartment underlit and the three-sided condition underused. The renovation rebalances the interior by opening the plan end to end, allowing daylight to travel the full 14.5 meters - from morning to evening - and by establishing a clear relationship between open, lively shared spaces and more serene private rooms.
The plan is organized into three longitudinal zones: a living zone; a central service and infrastructure zone; and a sleeping zone beyond. The contrast is one of tempo and atmosphere. The common rooms remain open and flexible, designed to host everyday life in all its forms, while the bedrooms are quieter and more contained, held behind the thickness of the central band.
That middle zone is the project’s backbone: a continuous oak construction running the apartment’s length. At once furniture and space, it is also the container for almost everything that is newly introduced in the renovation, consolidating domestic utilities into one precise element - kitchen, entry coat storage, concealed bedroom doors, a utility cabinet with washing machine, WC, bookshelf, and a media cabinet - so the rest of the plan can stay clear. A continuous linear light runs along the element, tracing its full length and, after dark, turning the band into the apartment’s protagonist : an illuminated spine that gathers the new program into a single, unmistakable presence.
Materiality was approached as continuity rather than replacement. The existing beige Ioannina marble was kept as a datum, and new oak was introduced in dialogue with the apartment’s earlier wood presence. Together, marble and oak bring rhythm along the plan through pattern, repetition, and joints, giving the long interior a measured cadence. Red-and-white striped awnings were reintroduced, echoing the originals and carrying forward their graphic presence.
Reuse was integral to the project’s attitude toward sustainability and to the respect of what was already there. Where new marble was required in the kitchen area after removing parquet, it was sourced from the demolition rubble of a nearby renovation, reducing waste and extending the life of existing material by giving it a new role within the apartment.
The project reflects the architect’s own trajectory: raised within a Greek cultural context and its particular relationship to light, materials, and everyday outdoor living, yet architecturally formed in Switzerland, where precision and functional clarity are non-negotiable. In D Flat, these two registers meet without hierarchy: local atmosphere and familiar cues are paired with a Swiss-inflected discipline of organization, concentrated infrastructure, and concealed transitions that keep the plan calm and usable. The renovation also acknowledges the apartment’s history: it takes place within a structure originally built by the architect’s father, and treats the existing character and spatial memory as something to work with, sharpen, and carry forward rather than replace.
D Flat is ultimately about alignment: plan with sun, new work with existing matter, and contemporary life with inherited character.
