Τhe apartment refurbishment in Cholargos, Athens was completed in May 2011. The existing apartment had a typical arrangement of the 1980’s apartments of suburban Athens. The entrance was found in the living room area, the kitchen comprised a separate room and a long corridor led to all the bedrooms, bathroom and WC. The programmatic needs of the client led to an architectural solution, according which the kitchen becomes the main ‘theme’ of the house. The newly refurbished apartment becomes extroverted in its ‘public’ spaces whereas it maintains the privacy of the bedrooms and bathroom. A sliding door separates the house in two parts, when needed, isolating the open plan kitchen-living-dining area.
As the refurbished kitchen is unified with the living and dining area, it becomes the welcoming feature of the apartment. The long polished cast-concrete counter of the kitchen is the first thing that the visitor sees, when entering the place. Generally, the materials used in the refurbishment of the apartment consist of an intense palette of textures and colours, which often contradict each other. For instance, the existing iroko wooden floor, though very different, is combined with new grey ceramic tiles. The grey ceramic tiled-floor covers the kitchen area and continues to the corridor and bathrooms. The existing red marble fireplace remains, but is situated by a series of simple minimal shelves on each side. Most of the existing furniture of the apartment were kept, though were lacquered in intense colours. This approach gave the furniture a ‘vintage’ mood and aesthetics.
Finally, the bathroom and WC were fully refurbished, keeping only their original position in the plan of the house. The bathroom’s walls are covered with glazed terracotta tiles in addition to polished concrete surfaces. The bathroom’s furniture has an antithesis to the rest of the room, by using a black and white-chipped Corian counter top and green, wooden-lacquered doors and drawers. Accordingly, the walls of the WC are a reminiscent of the 1950’s bathrooms, since they are painted in oil-based colours.
