"Stasis & Kinisis".

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In an existing steel structure located in the entrance to the city of Nafplio, we were asked to design a modern bakery, food and coffee station for the passer-by, visitor and resident alike.

In a build environment of semi-urban character, the size of the building highlights a scale that is dominant and in combination with the surrounding open spaces urges us to handle the reconstruction as a proposal that moves within the limits of an autonomous and independent volume respecting at the same time the busy road in front of it.

In this context we had to manage two obviously opposite conditions, stasis that accompanies a monolithic volume and movement that is the perpetual fate of a central highway.

The special form and use of the "scales" on the facades of the building came firstly from the need to protect the existing shell and secondly from a desire for the cover to be translated as a skin that embraces and soothes the building. In this way the building itself creates the alternations in the lighting and not the use of signs that we are used to in buildings with similar typology.

The element of water creates a transitional zone between the public and the private space. Treating the threshold in an almost flat surface and with direct contact to the main road becomes important.

As one enters the interior of the building, another world is revealed. From the low outdoor canopy space of 2.30m height we suddenly enter the main space which has 6.50m internal height. Observing the space from its lowest level, all the way to the top, the materials have been selected and placed to create a sense of lightness from the ground upwards.

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Photos by Pygmalion Karatzas