Trikoupi Apartment in Athens by Point Supreme Architects.

A dazzling dose of chroma lies behind the walls of this typical Athenian polykatoikia. Never ones to shy away from colour, Point Supreme Architects have flooded this tired three-bedroom apartment in Athens with natural light and a bold coat of paint.

Their signature flair for pigment and texture can be felt all throughout this comfortable home. Founded by Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou in 2008 in Rotterdam, and currently based in Athens, this formidable design outfit looks to the contradictions in life – the real and the imaginary, the past and the future, the communicable and the incommunicable, the high and the low, construction and destruction – to create from a place of polarity and contradiction, bridging the divide between the surreal and tangible.

The interior is orchestrated around a previously enclosed light shaft in the middle of the apartment. Now open, and with generous windows added on four sides, a whole new dimension has been revealed. With the demolition of all walls around the existing shaft, the area has uninterrupted circulation, centred around an expansive internal area. Bolstered by a variety of materials and finishes the space has an unparalleled abundance of natural light and cross views through the whole depth of the apartment leading to as the architects say “an unexpected sense of grand dimension”.

Gutting the living, dining and kitchen areas the interior is now a single free-flowing open-plan living arena, complete with a study. Walls and partitions are abandoned in this design in exchange for bespoke furniture pieces that support the various functions of home life. A refined timber screen defines the entrance with a complimentary red floor.

Meanwhile, elaborately finished storage in mottled emerald green lines one wall with a lush velvet daybed and lounge to match while powder pink shelving snakes its way around the interior side of the light shaft leading to a kitchen island with a marble top and burgundy cabinetry across the way. The furniture is free-floating with changing materiality that creates different atmospheres, as Point Supreme puts it “the overall space becomes a small world, with different neighbourhoods that suit changing moods and times of the day.”

With a sunny disposition to match and even sunnier light shaft, Point Supreme have transformed this apartment from drab to fab with unexpected touches that feel suitably contemporary while staying firmly rooted in Greece’s cultural legacy.

Related: Nadja Apartment in Athens, Greece by Point Supreme.

[Images courtesy of Point Supreme Architects. Photography by Yannis Drakoulidis.]