The “Ochra” apartment, designed by Space is Around Us in Athens, Greece, showcases a unique approach to renovating a 1970s apartment building. Completed in 2024, the project redefines the space with minimal interventions while maintaining originality and authenticity.
Located in the vibrant Pangrati district of Athens, Ochra apartment is an example of creativity on a budget. Owned by an individual seeking minimal intervention but maximum originality, the renovation preserves authenticity while redefining the apartment’s identity.
The 70-square-metre apartment originally had a layout common to many buildings of the time, with significant separation of individual rooms. Recognizing the need for a more fluid, interconnected living environment, the design team redefined the layout to create a functional interplay between the kitchen, dining room, living room and study.
An important decision was to replace the wall that strictly separated the kitchen and dining room with a through wall. This change allows for a smooth flow of activity and brings more natural light into the previously cramped kitchen space. It also improves the overall aesthetics of the apartment by creating an open living space without the need for extensive and costly structural alterations.
One of the distinctive features of this renovation is the use of Ioannina marble, a material original to the building’s original construction. The yellowish marble that covers the floors in the kitchen, hallway and balcony – and even the entrance walls of the building – was considered essential to the historical identity of the building. The restoration restored it to its original state and made it a central element of the new design of the apartment.
Around the ochre colour of the Ioannina marble, the design team created a cohesive colour identity by choosing complementary and harmonious shades. Green was chosen as a complementary colour for the kitchen cabinets and brick red was used to harmonise the overall palette, giving the space a lively and youthful character.
In an effort not to go over budget, a green wall colour was used to match the kitchen cabinets, thus maintaining design coherence without increasing costs. There are small format tiles on the kitchen countertop that match the Ioannina marble on the floor. The same tiles were also used to cover the base of the central concrete column that visually connects the new open layout.
By rethinking storage solutions, Space is Around Us solved the limited space of the apartment by removing traditional wardrobes and introducing bespoke storage. In one of the bedrooms, a nearly three-foot closet was modified with a niche to accommodate a desk, giving it functional variety. In the second, smaller bedroom, an open, multifunctional piece of furniture serves as both a storage space and a bedside table, adapting to the space constraints imposed by the double bed.
The colour scheme of the bedroom integrates the furniture and ensures a coherent design. The void area created by the removal of old wardrobes was resolved by using small format tiles from the kitchen, thus maintaining visual consistency.
Parquet flooring was retained in the bedrooms to complement the rarely preserved parquet flooring in the living room. A large series of openings in the living room were visually unified by curtains to help modulate natural light and offer privacy from the adjacent building.
The Ochre apartment is a remarkable example of how thoughtful design can radically change the identity of a home, even on a limited budget.
