Magazi, Neos Kosmos

Neos Kosmos is part of Athens municipality, it has sheltered Armenian refugees in the early 1920’s -Dourgouti- and members of resistance during the German occupation in the 2^nd W.W. Apartment buildings which have spaces for a store or workshop, i.e. a “magazi” at the ground-floor are common in the area. “Magazia”, especially garages and car spare parts stores but also art and other kinds of workshops define this neighbourhood. Besides, Fix's, a former factory and currently Museum of Contemporary Art, major presence marks the special quality of the area. The combination of team work (syn-ergeia in Greek), craftmanship, art and most of all, relation to society and everyday life, which pretty much sums up what architecture represents for us, made it the right place for GAARDE’s headquarters.

Moreover, following GAARDE’s preference for reuse and interest for sustainability, we picked a long abandoned magazi, an open-plan space of one and a half storey clearance and a big front window on the sideway. Direct contact with the street was required, but in order to also achieve visual privacy we replaced the bottom glass with armed translucent type, which turned the passers-by into moving shadows as seen from the inside. The transparent top glasses permit unobstructed view to and from the opposite balconies. We kept the place’s workshop character, the terrazzo floor, the sliding entrance door, the clerestory windows and we designed and constructed everything by iron and wood, simple and unpretentious, in accordance with the place’s original purpose. The new electrical installation was made entirely visible, pieces of furniture were reused and all the new structures can be easily removed.