In Athens’ Koukaki neighbourhood, a short walk from the Acropolis Museum, KARИ studio transforms the ground floor of a 1938 corner building into OLYN, a gluten-free bistro and bakehouse. Defined by its distinctive curved corner, the project combines a light sage-green exterior with olive-toned joinery and warm terracotta interiors, reinterpreting the existing shell through a restrained contemporary Mediterranean language.
Occupying the ground floor of a three-storey mid-war building, OLYN preserves the architectural character of its host structure. Recessed curved corners define each level, while an organically shaped first-floor balcony and sculpted vertical piers frame the street-facing elevation.
Rather than introducing a new architectural identity, the intervention amplifies these existing qualities, allowing the building’s geometry to become the project’s defining spatial gesture.
The design adopts a strategy of precise adaptive reuse, balancing preservation with carefully considered contemporary insertions. Generous ceiling heights, expansive street-facing openings and the prominent corner location establish a direct relationship with the surrounding public realm.
Fully operable façades dissolve the boundary between interior and street, extending the life of the eatery into the pedestrian environment and transforming the curved corner into an urban threshold rather than a conventional storefront.
Inside, the space unfolds as a single open volume organised around a sculptural central counter finished in textured terracotta plaster. More than a service element, the counter becomes the spatial nucleus of the project, organising circulation while encouraging visual and social interaction.
Its softly rounded geometry echoes the building’s curved façade, maintaining uninterrupted sightlines throughout the interior and towards the surrounding streets.
Terracotta clostra subtly separate the kitchen and ancillary functions from the seating area without compromising openness. Their permeable geometry filters light, promotes natural ventilation and creates shifting patterns of shadow, reinforcing the project’s emphasis on craftsmanship, tactility and spatial continuity.
Materiality defines the architectural experience.
Drawing inspiration from the earthy tones of the Mediterranean landscape and the material culture of baking, the project combines terracotta flooring, lime-plastered walls, olive-toned timber joinery and finely detailed metalwork into a restrained palette of natural textures and muted colours. The warm chromatic language continues seamlessly onto the exterior through the building’s light sage façade and olive-green frames, establishing visual continuity between architecture and the streetscape while giving the corner building a calm yet distinctive urban presence.
Rather than concealing the building’s evolution, existing mechanical services remain exposed, introducing an industrial layer that contrasts with the handcrafted finishes below. This dialogue between raw infrastructure and carefully crafted surfaces reinforces the adaptive reuse strategy, allowing traces of the building’s ongoing transformation to remain legible.
The operational concept is equally embedded in the architecture. Conceived as a fully gluten-free eatery and bakehouse, OLYN provides a completely celiac-safe environment where cross-contamination is eliminated by design. The organisation of production, preparation and customer circulation supports rigorous operational requirements while maintaining an open, transparent and welcoming spatial experience.
By allowing the building’s existing geometry to inform every design decision, KARИ studio transforms a modest mid-war commercial shell into an architecture defined by continuity rather than contrast. The interplay of curved forms, tactile materials, and a restrained Mediterranean palette creates an inviting civic interior that strengthens the dialogue between building and street, demonstrating how adaptive reuse can establish a contemporary identity while amplifying the inherent character of the original structure.
Facts & Credits
Project title OLYN
Typology Interiors, Bistro, Food Retail
Location Acropolis, Koukaki, Athens
Area 100m2
Status Completed, 2026
Architecture KARИ studio
Lead architect Nancy Karagianni
Design team Florentia Xanthakou
Graphic Design Serafeim Florakis
Photography Bessawissa studio