Piraeus Port Plaza 1

The project scope includes the conversion of an existing warehouse building into an office building through maintaining the existing envelope and adding internally two new levels in the superstructure, and an underground parking space. Hence, this Project is considered a Major Renovation one.
The plot on which the Piraeus Port Plaza 1 project has been developed is located near the port of Piraeus in Attica Greece. The area is a former industrial area, which is undergoing a major redevelopment. The Municipality has issued a new master plan, which is adding parks and bicycle
routes, the port is undergoing an expansion is well.

The main concept was to maintain the industrial character of the existing warehouse building, by keeping its original external metal shell and building footprint. In order to add daylight and views to the interior areas, the exterior shell was opened on all sides with windows and parts of the roof where removed to create a central atrium, to serve natural light and ventilation to the adjoining spaces, while at the same time providing an private exterior garden for the employees.
In front of the main entrance an exterior courtyard has been designed, which is covered by pergolas, that provide a feeling of protection and shading, while at the same time developing the landmark character of the building and marking the entrance.
In order to provide the required amount of parking spaces to comply with the requirements of the building permit and at the same time to avoid locating parking at the exterior hardscapes, a new basement was constructed below the existing building. This difficult procedure involved
the construction of a new foundation with bore-piles and excavations below the existing ground floor plate.
Based on the building program of the tenant, the owner decided to separate each level into offices and auxiliary rooms, distributed around the central open air atrium. The atrium creates a central vertical core, connecting the three levels above ground, and provides occupants access to the exterior, daylight, ventilation and views. All sides of the atrium are enclosed by a curtain wall structure, with operable windows. The atrium is surrounded by office spaces with open plan layout on the first and second floor, while on the ground floor there are closed meeting and seminar rooms to the West and East, required for the operation of the call center, separated from the open plan offices, with glass partitions, in order to achieve minimal optical compartmentalization.
The project consists of office areas, training and meeting rooms, restaurant / café area, sanitary areas, changing and lockers rooms for the employees, parking and bicycle parking spaces, at the basement, a recycling area with easy access for trucks, resting area outside the building, near the café, storage areas, secondary areas and the central atrium.
We opted for high endurance / low maintenance materials, locally produced or with amounts of recycled content in an effort to minimize the buildings carbon footprint. The building designed seeks to fulfill the aforementioned quantitative requirements while providing a healthy and
sustainable work environment for the company employees. Acoustic performance of the building was of high concern.