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Stillness and Movement: Bath and Hotel Extension in Athens

Part 2 Project 2013
Shoji Tamura
University of East London London | UK
The project is an extension of an existing hotel and a new bath. It is located between a deprived community and a tourist area in the North of the Acropolis. The immediate existing site comprises disused open land and a series of dilapidated 19th Century buildings that used to form a perimeter block. Only the front facades and the party walls of the two to three story buildings are remaining. The existing hotel borders onto the site with a large party wall, from the south.

The intervention is set up to invigorate the area and bring further live from the tourist area into this deprived community. The bath allows a synergy between tourists and locals, while one subsidizes the other. Furthermore, the hotel expansion allows for needed hotel capacity. The designs of the bath and hotel are centered on a new public space that invites for resting, leisure, circulation and access.

The bath design takes advantage of the small grain of 19th century buildings. Individual bath units are located within the remains, stabilizing their structures. Furthermore, the bath units step back from the front facades forming smaller courtyards that allow indirect light to filter deep into the bath. It is about stillness and movement. The upper floors form a new roofscape that is a play of former plot tectonics.

On the ground floor, the hotel opens with a café onto the newly formed public space, further invigorating public live and blurring crucial boundaries between inside and outside. On the upper levels, the hotel is an extension of the party wall condition. Rooms gain privacy and indirect light through internal balconies.

The project is a journey through scale, form and activity that allows for a new place in the heart of Athens.

Shoji Tamura

Tutor(s)

2013
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