A series of light-touch interventions transforms a ground-floor apartment in Kolonaki into the architecture practice’s first permanent workplace, retaining the existing timber floors, glazed doors and arched entrance.

 

The Local Local workplace occupies a 77m² ground-floor apartment in Kolonaki, Athens. Designed by Local Local as the practice’s first permanent headquarters, the project adapts an existing residential interior through a series of non-structural interventions that preserve its previous architectural layers.

Before moving into the new office, the growing team had been working from founder Sofia Xanthakou’s own Plaka House. The new space provides a dedicated setting for collective work while translating the studio’s wider interest in context, material history and reuse into its everyday working environment.

 

Working with the existing apartment

As the property is leased, the intervention was deliberately restrained. Instead of substantially altering the existing plan, the design works with the qualities already present in the apartment.

The original timber floors were repaired and lightened to compensate for the limited direct sunlight reaching the ground-floor interior. White walls further increase luminosity, while the existing timber doors with rippled glazed panels were restored and finished in a slightly darker tone.

The arched entrance was also retained. Together, these elements preserve the domestic origins of the space rather than concealing them behind a conventional office fit-out.

The L-shaped plan is divided primarily between the main workspace and a meeting room with access from two sides. This simple organization allows the small office to accommodate different patterns of individual and collective work without introducing new permanent partitions.

 

Furniture as part of the workplace

A large solid-cypress table in the meeting room became the point of departure for the furniture designed specifically for the office.

Drawing on its material and proportions, Local Local developed a large communal worktable and two window-facing desks. Solid timber is combined with Formica to withstand the heavier daily use associated with the workplace.

The new elements coexist with chairs retrieved from storage rather than replaced with a complete new furniture set. This combination of bespoke pieces and existing objects gives the office an intentionally cumulative character.

The meeting room itself was formerly a bedroom. Its original wardrobe was retained, but its doors were removed and replaced with roll-up blinds. The simple alteration transforms the existing joinery into open storage for material samples and project documentation while keeping another layer of the apartment visible.

 

Books and collective design work

A Vitsœ shelving system occupies one of the main walls and holds Sofia Xanthakou’s architecture library, assembled over almost a decade of study and professional work.

Previously kept in storage, the books now form both a working resource and a visual backdrop to the studio. Their prominent position reflects the practice’s continued use of printed material as a tool for research and design.

Another wall is occupied by a long perforated-metal pinboard finished in pistachio green. Designed by Local Local, it allows drawings, references and work in progress to be displayed and reviewed collectively.

The element establishes an analogue counterpart to screen-based work. Projects can be pinned up, compared and discussed at a larger scale, turning the wall into an active part of the design process.

 

A more distinct entrance

The entrance was treated as an opportunity to give the workplace a clearer identity. The existing lobby had little natural light and lacked a distinct spatial character.

Local Local invited artist Theodore Psychoyos to create two site-specific marble pieces for this area: a sculptural console and a seat. Marble, already recurrent in the practice’s architectural work, introduces a denser material presence against the lighter background of timber floors and white walls.

The pieces are functional objects but also establish a more deliberate threshold between the street, the shared building and the studio.

Lighting contributes another precisely selected layer. Ceiling fixtures by Michael Anastassiades are used in the principal workspace, while a freestanding light by the same designer completes the meeting room.

 

An office designed to accumulate

The project does not pursue the image of a finished, immutable workplace. Existing architectural elements, restored furniture, new joinery, books, material samples and artworks are deliberately allowed to coexist.

This approach leaves space for the office to change as the practice develops. Objects and references can accumulate, work can occupy the walls, and individual areas can adapt to new routines without requiring substantial alterations to the apartment.

Through a limited number of interventions, the Local Local workplace demonstrates how an ordinary residential interior can acquire a new function while retaining its previous character. Rather than erasing the apartment, the design uses its existing features as the framework for a workplace shaped by collaboration, material research and gradual occupation.