Men’s Student Residence building

279-281 Patission St, 1961-1967

Architects
Nikos Desyllas (1926-)
Dimitris Kontargyris (1934-)
Antonis Lambakis (1933-1990)
Pavlos Loukakis (1933-)



The Men’s Student Residence of the University of Athens was the first bold effort on the part of the young generation of architects to dispute the "façade architecture" of Athenian city blocks, utilising the principles of modern town planning and the anti-urban stylistic code of international brutalism.
The study by these four architects won first prize in an open architectural competition in 1959.
The building occupies the entire city block demarcated by Patission, Evg. Karavia, Ay. Louka and St. Kyparisou Sts. Its volumes are freely deployed and disengaged from the boundaries of the construction line.
The men’s residence has three basements and 10 upper floors to a maximum height of 32.8 m.
The building covers 1500 sq.m. of a lot 1900 sq.m. Each of the eight uppermost floors that contain the students’ rooms has a total area of just 550 sq.m., ensuring a satisfactory distance from the surrounding buildings.
The total volume of the building is about 45,000 cu.m. It can house 266 students in single rooms (for the first time in Greece) and has public areas (halls, recreation rooms, restaurant, reading room etc, as well as a reception hall and closed underground pool).
The synthesis of the volumes is a bold proposal that abolished the rules existing to date of retail construction in a region in which the row building system is applicable. The volume is split into two, the low horizontal volume of the public areas and the vertical rectangular volume of the bedrooms, situated off-centre and with its narrow side on the front. The façades were handled simply. On the front, the horizontal element of the roof over the low volume dominates, while on the narrow side of the high structure the vertical element is stressed by its division into three parts.
The sides of the high structure are treated on the basis of the bedroom grid emphasising the horizontal slabs.

TRANSPORTATION