1st Prize, Invited Architectural Competition
Mies Van Der Rohe European Architecture Award (Nomination) 2024 (to be announced only after 13 October)
BIG SEE Architecture Award 2023
Iconic Awards 2023: Innovative Architecture in the category - Architecture – Corporate
Honorable Mention, International Architecture Awards 2023
Titan Property Awards Platinum Winner 2022
“I 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 by the L that shapes it. It is a building that talks about 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 a 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 ground floor and four floors above ground for offices, and a two-storey 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 projecting 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 louvres 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 louvres 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.
Team:
Owner: PRODEA Investments
Project Management: Arbitrage Real Estate Advisors
Development Consultant: CH+V Development
Architectural Design: RS SPARCH PC
Lead Architect: Rena Sakellaridou
Collaborators: N. Tsompikou, I. Kloni, L. Ioannidou, K. Skalkogianni, M. Christopoulou, N. Sidorakis, G. Diaskoufis, Ch. Agnantopoulou, A. Sechremeli
Structural Design: M. Manios, / D. Βairaktaris & Associates LTD
MEP Design: T.E.M.E.K. SA - Α. Koutsikos
Surveyor: A. Mountaneas
LEED Consultant: DCARBON PC
Lighting Consultant: LAST (Lighting Architecture Studio) – A. Klonizakis
Landscape Design: H.Pangalou & Associates
Acoustic Consultant: Theodore Timagenis & Associates
General Contractor: TERNA SA
Photography: Yiorgis Yerolymbos
Site Diaries Photos: Rena Sakellaridou
Materials Used:
Facade cladding: Structural Glass Curtain Systems, Technical SA
Aluminum Systems, Alumil SA
Flooring: Gortinis Marble, Doutsiouk Bros Private Company
Epoxy Floors, Lysis Insulations
Interior lighting: Interior and Exterior Light Fixtures, Smeka SA
