AREA, Architecture Research Athens

01/11/2026

Thinking about “Atrapos”*, which is a house of thresholds. While there are many kinds of thresholds, one is that which occupies the space between indoors and outdoors. It can be the thickness of a wall or an entire cavity carved from the wall. Or simply a place of momentary pause within the “polyrhythmia” (H. Lefebvre) of everyday life. Thresholds articulate the polyrhythmia that is everywhere in traditional Cycladic architecture. More than just an approach to form, it is about the movement between spaces that makes domesticity an act of negotiation. In Atrapos, each interior space has its own articulated and direct access to outdoor space: a kind of culturally embedded relationship to the landscape. 
 
*atrapos: a winding pathway, from the Greek, “ατραπός”. The overall form of the house traces an old agrarian path.  
 
This project was completed with OLIAROS 
 
Photographs by Vassilis Makris 
 

20/07/2026

Upcoming Lecture: Athens, Model City

On Thursday, July 23rd at the Architectural Association in London. See you there!

AREA, Architecture Research Athens, presents a series of projects that draw from Athens as a laboratory for design diplomacy.

22/06/2026

Ατραπός: μια γραμμική κατοικία στην Αντίπαρο, κατεβαίνει την πλαγιά κατά μήκος ενός μονοπατιού.

✨Το τελευταίο ολοκληρωμένο έργο μας συμπεριλαμβάνεται στη βραχεία λίστα για το βραβείο καλύτερου υλοποιημένου έργου στα ελληνικά βραβεία αρχιτεκτονικής από το DOMa.archi 😍❤️

Architects: AREA
Developer:Oliaros Property Development
Structural Engineer:Ioannis Mazis
Mecganical Engineer: PG Kamarinos
Landscape: doxiadis+

Shortlisted for “Best Realized Project”


Project: Atrapos, Holiday House in Antiparos, Cyclades
Architects: AREA
Photography:

23.06.2026
Ceremony at the atrium of the Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos St.

Free entrance – Link in bio to reserve your seat

29/05/2026

AREA was invited by Bimberg & Frenz to contribute a drawing to a collective exhibition on architecture as it appears on Euro banknotes. The design of banknotes currently includes fictional architectural fragments that do not refer to national monuments or specific authors but supposedly refer to “Ages and Styles of Europe”. Among the themes represented (Classical, Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque/Roccoco and Age of Iron and Glass), modern architecture has been conspicuously absent since the 500 Euro banknote was withdrawn in 2019. AREA’s response is titled “Refugee Settlement: Euro-funded Housing for the Unwanted” and refers to the ongoing refugee crisis and the kind of architecture that Europe reserves for the most vulnerable. 
 
Also shown: “Housing as Monument: In the face of Europe’s housing crisis, San Siro is reclaimed rather than demolished, transforming a monument of spectacle into infrastructure for living,” by (last image top); and “Adaptive Futures: Transform & Reuse. Reimagining existing architecture for a sustainable urban future” by .arquitectos (last image bottom). 
 
Many thanks to . The exhibition is on as part of the Architecture Curating Practice residency program at Rue des Tanneurs 139 in Brussels.  
 
 

05/05/2026

AREA was honored to be part of an amazing group of architects and scholars at Columbia GSAPP’s Kenneth Frampton Endowed Symposium: a conversation on the theme of recycling, repurposing, and re-use that took place through a discussion on projects with and by GSAPP faculty:  
 
Emanuel Admassu (GSAPP; AD-WO)
 
Andraos (GSAPP; WorkAC) .ac
 
Mimi Hoang (GSAPP; nArchitects)
 
Harold Fallon (GSAPP; AgwA)
 
Laurie Hawkinson (GSAPP; Smith-Miller + Hawkinson)
 
Nahyun Hwang (GSAPP; NHDM) .hwang
 
Jamaleddine (GSAPP; L.E.FT (http://l.e.ft/))
 
Dean Andrés Jaque (GSAPP; OFFPOLINN)
 
Christoph a. Kumpusch (GSAPP; Forward-slash (/))
 
Kaja Kuehl (GSAPP; youarethecity)
 
Jing Liu (GSAPP; SO-IL)
 
Adam Lubinsky (GSAPP; WXY)
 
Mireia Luzárraga (GSAPP; TAKK)
 
Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano (GSAPP; LOT-EK)
 
Robert Marino (GSAPP; Robert Marino Architects),  
 
Alessandro Orsini (GSAPP; Architensions)
 
Jorge Otero-Pailos (GSAPP; Otero Pailos Studio)
 
Michaeljohn Raftopoulos (GSAPP; AREA, Architecture Research Athens)
 
Rachely Rotem (GSAPP; MODU) .rotem
 
Karla Rothstein (GSAPP; latent)
 
Hilary Sample (GSAPP; MOS)
 
Galia Solomonoff (GSAPP: SAS)
 
Bernard Tschumi (GSAPP; Bernard Tschumi Architects) .tschumi
 
Marc Tsurumaki (GSAPP; LTL) and others.