Small apartment building on Strefi Hill

16 Aftokratoron Angelon St, Athens 1992-1996

Architects
Giorgos Antonakakis
Aleka Monemvasitou



This little building is a remarkable counter-proposal by the architects Giorgos Antonakakis and Aleka Monemvasitou to the conventional apartment blocks in Athens. It is situated on the north side of Strefi Hill in the centre of town, with access by stairs from Aftokratoron Angelon St. It has six levels and includes three dwellings, two large and one small, and one office. The shape of the lot, the demand for its optimum exploitation and the effort to adapt the building to the slope of the terrain largely determined its plan in the shape of an L. The two arms of the L, about the same in area but with different dimensions, embrace the southwestern unbuilt ground, which became a courtyard. The insertion of a narrow zone on an east-west axis, articulated the two arms of the L and organised the building’s volumes. On this zone is the entrance, bright and open, filtering the traffic from the street to the apartments. The old detached homes in the area provided the model for this composition.
The two large apartments face on two streets with an eastern opening on the narrow but green street and the western opening onto the inner courtyard. Each of the large dwellings is organised around a two-storey area which functions like a closed courtyard and in which movement from the lower to the higher level takes place. These two high-ceilinged spaces are adjacent to the open courtyard from which they are lighted.

TRANSPORTATION