Athens, Greece
2019-2020

The intervention deals with the conversion of a small neighborhood store in the city center of Athens into an espresso coffee shop. The extreme narrowness and size of the space, led to a combination of choices that intensify exactly these seemingly unfavorable features and turning them into structural elements of the space. Constructions are designed and made specifically for that space – furniture that come to serve the functionality of the shop, in order to facilitate the accuracy of the employee’s movements for the preparation of coffee.

Initially, the combined elements that shape the space are: a metal wall with linear shelves, becoming the core base, as a pedestal, of the shop’s vital “tool”, the coffee machine. The rest of the constructions, the bar and the preparation areas, are also made out of metal but painted differently from the other metal constructions which are left in their natural color, in order to contradict and therefore highlight their different uses.

The basic requirement of this particular shop was the preparation and serving of excellent quality coffee. Subsequently, the spatial plan results to enjoy the ritual of drinking coffee while the service remains subtle.