KOSMOS – Bakery & Coffee / Studio 2Pi Architecture

KOSMOS – Bakery & Coffee / Studio 2Pi Architecture

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Text description provided by the architects. In an existing steel structure located at the entrance to the city of Nafplio, we were asked to design a modern bakery, food, and coffee station for the passer-by, visitors, and residents alike.

In a build environment of semi-urban character, the size of the building highlights a scale that is dominant and in combination with the surrounding open spaces urges us to handle the reconstruction as a proposal that moves within the limits of an autonomous and independent volume respecting the same time the busy road in front of it. In this context, we had to manage two obviously opposite conditions, a stasis that accompanies a monolithic volume and movement that is the perpetual fate of a central highway.

 The special form and use of the “scales” on the facades of the building came firstly from the need to protect the existing shell and secondly from a desire for the cover to be translated as a skin that embraces and soothes the building. In this way, the building itself creates the alternations in the lighting and not the use of signs that we are used to in buildings with similar typologies. The exterior lighting can therefore be changed according to the wishes and needs of the users so that it becomes a part of the design unified and indivisible from the shell.

The element of water creates a transitional zone between the public and the private space. Treating the threshold on an almost flat surface and with direct contact with the main road becomes important.

As one enters the interior of the building, another world is revealed. From the low outdoor canopy space of 2.30m height, we suddenly enter the main space which has a 6.50m internal height. Observing the space from its lowest level, all the way to the top, the materials have been selected and placed to create a sense of light from the ground upwards. At the base, we have selected marble travertine romano Classico, which provides a solid start. The middle zone is made of marine plywood in a light color that essentially plays the role of the element of transition from the natural and earthly to the futuristic shapes of the third zone that embraces the exhibition space.