Unexpected and timeless at the same time, Point Supreme’s architecture creates spaces-refuges that allow time for oneself while promoting communal life. “We don’t need to build from scratch but to transform the buildings we already have into new spatial experiences,” notes the office’s co-founder, Konstantinos Pantazis, defining an ‘architecture of adaptation’, which designs and redesigns the world around it with “whatever is available,” articulating an architectural practice that is genuine, sustainable, both environmentally and socially, multi-layered and inclusive.
The old traditional two-story rural house was renovated for a family with two children, with the common areas and parents’ bedroom on the upper level and the children’s’ spaces on the lower level, which was originally the stable. To resolve the disconnected levels with contemporary family life, new functional elements, rooms and furniture were carefully positioned to create fluid circulation throughout the house. To achieve this, the private functions of the downstairs bathroom were reduced to their minimum, while other functions were integrated into a sensual, open room that performs equally as a central passage.
The original stone vaults on the lower level, were preserved and revealed, each hosting a bedroom for the children with raised wooden floors containing storage and extra mattresses for sleepovers, and heavy curtains that separate them from the common area. The base of the new internal wooden stair doubles as a seating tribune with a generous hidden storage area. The narrow space between the columns under the upper veranda was converted into an enclosed sun-room (‘liakoto’). This new space between house and garden is densely programmed with functions that support outdoor living and use of the outdoor space: kitchenette, daybed and a small study area. The storage room on the other side of the house was turned into a functional workshop.
Within the communal area on the upper level, a traditional wooden interior façade (‘ontas’) was constructed to designate the living room with fireplace and create facing built-in seating. Across this, a hole was cutout in the wooden floor to allow direct access downstairs via a trap door. In the kitchen, a day bed (‘krevata’) was built – a typical feature of Greek traditional houses – adding to the room’s communal character. At a material level, like an archeological excavation, the renovation process preserved elemental features of the original house while introducing new traditional elements in contemporary form.
Hidden textures and materials that had been covered for years were revealed; their presence and patina was preserved and where required, stabilized – stones were infilled with rough concrete. The exact and unusual colors of the original windows and doors (mustard, pistachio and ceramic red) were kept, respecting the authentic and spontaneous choices of the original builders. The corrugated aluminum roof – typical of storage structures – was also rebuilt, with the use of stones atop it to hold it in place. The careful play of new construction and original characteristics allows the vernacular house to accommodate new contemporary, flexible ways of living while also rerooting it in the local traditions of family life.
With tools such as the magnetic power of the archetype, the intimacy that exudes the folk, and the rough grounding of the handmade, Point Supreme brought back to life a home – a refuge in nature, far from the artificial and the unnecessary, a home vast “like glory or ignorance”, a home taken from the verses of Cavafy and Ritsos.
Trying to cultivate a sense of festive camaraderie, we think of homes as environments that promote common life, human relationships, intimacy, but also the relationship with the outside and nature,” notes Konstantinos Pantazis, ideally describing the redesign of the country house in the Peloponnese.
The process of excavation and revelation of hidden potentials is what interests us most in our work. In this particular house, we were immediately captivated by its original state: a very humble building, essentially 3 utility rooms downstairs and 3 living rooms upstairs, without connection to each other, built with stone. The movement between them took place outside, outdoors. Without any courtyard configuration. It is a house of shared living, diametrically opposed to the luxury and pleasure houses that we usually see built nowadays. This realization was probably the biggest surprise and guided the design. We maintained this sense of refuge and intensified the sense of enjoyment of living together that we believed the house already cultivated. We emphasized the different qualities that we distinguished in the individual rooms and connected them in different ways (pedestal, wooden divider, fabric, etc.) highlighting their uniqueness.
The family immediately welcomed all the proposals. Often those who choose to collaborate with us have a similar willingness to adapt, they are open to letting the existing situation and its particularities guide the design. I remember, we presented alternative scenarios, there were more ‘neutral’ solutions, but the most substantial was always preferred without hesitation. I believe that this spatial experience of habitation will influence children: architecture has the ability to ‘cultivate’ the user… the avoidance of stereotypes, the adaptation and compromise to the available means, the change of habits, the elimination of the importance of luxury, the connection with the land and with tradition and even more the sense of play, all of these are tools for returning to what is essential. We observe similar phenomena in other houses that we have built and the children who grow up in them, as well as in our own children in our own house… It is fascinating how such substantial spatial experiences of habitation renew and cultivate us adults as well… We are also influenced ourselves.
The materials and interventions were chosen with the aim of revealing and intensifying the sensations that the old house already evoked. In general, the surfaces were rough and uneven, the cross-sections thick, the light and shadows were absorbed in a uniform way. Thus, we often introduced surfaces where the light is reflected and thus colors the space around it thanks to the color of the surfaces. The colors are also mainly deviations from the existing colors (burgundy, mustard and pistachio), thus creating meaningful and sensory ‘units’ (warm passages, cool points of use-stop).
We need to redefine the way we live in the world. Architects have the tools and the ability to envision and visualize alternative scenarios for the future. So we also bear this obligation. Each of our projects is also a proposal for a way of life, it has consequences and carries responsibility. However, architects do not act alone, they are always in collaboration with institutions, clients, owners, etc. They serve the city, so they have a political role by definition. However, they can and must transform this role from passive to active, to use their science to imagine and pursue together with the city new ways of life, adapted to our time and its crises. In this direction, for example, we believe that we should promote the reuse and conversion of existing buildings, instead of demolishing and building new ones, the promotion of more humble, natural ways of living, the redefinition of the concept of luxury and economy, respect for locality, etc.
‘Everything leads us to believe that there exists a certain point in the mind at which life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future, the communicable and the incommunicable, the high and the low, construction and destruction, cease to be perceived in terms of contradiction. Surrealist activity, therefore, would be searched in vain for any other motive than the hope of determining this point ‘
Point Supreme Architects
Point Supreme were founded in Rotterdam in 2008 by Greece-born Marianna Rentzou and Konstantinos Pantazis after living and working in Athens, London, Brussels, Tokyo and Rotterdam (OMA, MVRDV). They have won 1st prize in various international competitions. Point Supreme was included among the 20 most influential personalities in Greece by popular Greek newspaper LIFO. They regularly publish self-initiated projects for the city of Athens where they are based.Their projects for the city were exhibited at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale.
‘Athens Projects’, the first book dedicated to their work was published by Graham Foundation in Chicago. The office has won 1st prizes for a Social Housing in Trondheim, the Faliro Pier in Athens, a sheltered public space in Tel Aviv (built), a Firestation in Belgium (built), the new Architecture school in Marseille (under construction) and an Artists Centre in Genk (construction to start soon). They are teaching internationally at architecture schools including Columbia University in New York and EPFL in Lauzanne.
