FASHION SQUAD

The building was designed to host the offices and showroom of a fashion agency, comprising a basement, an entrance level, and three floors. The 275 sq.m. rectangular lot is located on a low-traffic street. The client requested two distinct functional units—office space and showroom—divided by a 1:5 ratio, considered appropriate as the offices operate year-round while the showroom is used for five months annually, during spring and autumn. The showroom was to be a flexible open-plan space, easily adaptable to seasonal needs, providing maximum natural light while limiting direct sun exposure. The main architectural idea was an initially compact volume whose boundaries and composition are redefined as the building meets the ground and the sky, where semi-open spaces are located; the intention was to preserve the impression of a unified whole while maintaining privacy on the two intermediate, seasonally occupied levels, and strengthening the direct relationship between exterior and interior on the ground and third levels, which are used throughout the year. The vertical circulation core—staircase and elevator—occupies a portion of the building that gradually detaches from the main volume, covering most of the north façade and acting as a relaxation zone between the intermediate levels by allowing visual contact with the exterior. This façade is wrapped in a double skin of translucent channel glass (U-glass), which diffuses daylight and gives the building an airy quality in contrast to the density of the overall concrete construction. Material selection was driven by both functionality and a preference for plain form, expressed through a limited palette of distinct materials that emphasize the structure: the rough, strict character of cast-in-place reinforced concrete combined with the clarity of glass in its various forms. Used in their natural colours, the concrete grey and the pale green of the U-glass highlight the colourful exhibited clothing, creating a background that supports the display without competing with it. The building has been published in the annual review of architecture in Greece – 2007, in several greek architectural magazines, has represented Greece in the “Piran days of Architecture – Piranesi Awards 2007” and has been presented in the “5th Biennale of Young Greek Architects” in 2007.