Ναταλία Μπαζαίου

Τhe Alpameda apartment

  • Renovations
  • Project Architect: Natalia Bazaiou
  • Status: Complete
  • Date: 2022
  • Size: 130 m2
  • Location: Papagos, Athens
  • Photography: Alina Lefa
  • Collaborators: Yiannis Katsiavos (Architect) LUUN (Lighting Design)
  • Client: private


An apartment in the area of Papagou, home to a multicultural family with roots in

Europe and Asia, was renovated with a view, firstly, to showcasing the cultural

wealth at the heart of the family in a playful and light-hearted manner, free from the

weighty representations of heritage and, secondly, to streamlining forms and

decluttering spaces, making them conducive to a peaceful and creative coexistence.

The renovation focused on rethinking the main entrance, the kitchen and two

bathrooms, as well as the color palette across all of the apartment’s main spaces. It

hoped to maximize on the dialogue of different textures and materials and to give the

apartment a general facelift while opening it up to the light.

The kitchen remodel, which consisted of interventions both inside and around the

actual room, was central to the project. Previously, the kitchen was an outmoded,

dark and rather oppressive space. Its entrance was clumsy and gave off an awkward

vibe, while space inside it was organized in such a way that it failed to accommodate

the family’s furniture and to adequately serve their needs. In its new version, the

kitchen becomes a canvas for the harmonious interaction of materiality and texture,

evoking a sense of tranquility, openness and joy, which is further reinforced by the

addition of a window opening onto the balcony and streaming natural light into the

interior. The entrance to the room has been given a complete makeover: two walls

have been torn down and replaced by corresponding ceramic walls, an emblematic

structure visible from all of the apartment’s main spaces, intensely tactile and

suggestive in its play with light, setting the tone of the project and providing the

apartment with a clear identity.

The kitchen’s new arrangement allows for more usable space: kitchen units extend

over a larger wall surface to create room for a table that comfortably seats all of the

family’s four members and also doubles as a desk, thus being the point to which

both the family’s everyday life and creative energies gravitate. There is a play of

different textures: kitchen cabinets incorporate metal and wood which combine to

create distinctly sculptural yet weightless forms; the old terrazzo floor is revealed to

gently hark at the apartment’s past, as is the raw concrete of the two columns at the

entrance to the kitchen which is left exposed to add to the evocative symphony of

textures that make up the space. Where the kitchen opens onto the balcony terrazzo

is combined with cement tiles, while at the entrance to the room flaws of the original

floor are covered up by means of handmade microcement flooring. The space’s two

thresholds are thus highlighted and become an added point of visual interest.

The intriguing dialogue of materials that underpins the entire project is carried on in

the apartment’s originally bland and visually unchallenging bathrooms. In the main

bathroom, tiles, concrete and microcement finishes as well as metal create an

atmosphere of casual intimacy, while a smaller bathroom serving the family’s teens

is painted a bright color and fitted with neon lighting, giving off a sense of cheeky

punk-rock vitality.

Finally, the project is completed with the main entrance remodel which incorporates

an airy handmade structure, a bookcase made of white metal rods placed by the

door and extending all the way from the floor to the ceiling, its size and clear, see-

through simplicity affecting the user’s overall perception of scale and rhythm.