Design of residence types for city blocks 1365 and 1366 setting out aesthetic and construction principles
Year: 2001
Agency: The Municipality of Ano Liosia

Our practice was commissioned to design city blocks 1365 and 1366 by the Municipality of Ano Liosia, following the 1998 earthquake. This involved the general regeneration of the city blocks as well as maintaining property lines and creating individual designs for the residences, according to the requirements of each owner.
Having set limitations, such as the shape of the property boundaries, as well as the generally free system of building, the design focused on a variety of types and shapes.
We avoided a severe style, which, in any case, was neither possible nor sought. Based on the actual conditions (empty lots, condemned buildings, potential for a united open space etc.), each plot of land was dealt with in accordance to its own particular features, taking into consideration the preferences of the owners and the common regulations / guidelines (type of roofing, frontage onto road, size of openings).
The types of residences selected were either two-storey residences or single-storey homes. Where there were two levels, the ground level contained the living room and the kitchen, with access to the open space, while the upper level contained the bedrooms.
The roof designs (two-sided gable roofs and four-sided hip roofs) were selected in order to avoid fragmenting their volumes and in an attempt to unify them. The choice to raise or draw back the edge of the roofs inwards allows areas to receive lighting from the surrounding zone, maintaining, on a secondary level, the maximum height of a building.
The morphology was determined by recesses in the body of the building, areas with lower ceilings and covered areas verandas, Persian blinds on staircases, the use of colours on walls that stand out or recede.
The main requirement was to maintain differences between properties and to make this clear; balancing the remaining elements of an “organised” building plan.
This variety of forms, the result of integral elements of the composition (volume, projections, rooflines, etc.), was achieved with the use of a more conventional construction and within an attainable cost framework, ruling out small interventions in the façades with the use of a multiplicity of materials and harder construction methods.