Category: Residential

Maria Kardami Design Studio was tasked with creating a comfortable yet spectacular modern interior for a two-story luxury apartment high above the bustling, colourful Evripidou area of historic central Athens.

The apartment’s spaces have all been organised in such a way as to through one floor-to-ceiling glazed wall, which looks out onto an outside patio decorated with large, lushly green potted plants. Pale, sand-coloured wood floors complement white painted walls and semi-transparent, vertically pleated retractable window blinds. The organically-shaped Baxter Piaf sofa is upholstered in white as are custom-designed dining chairs. The space has been visually enriched with spectacular geometric Flos hanging lighting fixtures of spare elegance, which also serve as mobile aerial sculptures.

The wooden floor carries on through the rest of the rooms at this level: kitchen, child’s bedroom and bathroom, and guest W/C. Simply panelled sections in the kitchen and child’s bedroom walls, painted white throughout, conceal cabinet space and wardrobes to give a clean look. The kitchen island, guest W/C and bathroom floor and splash zones are of white veined marble. The large closet in the child’s bedroom is fronted with glass panels in narrow gold-coloured metal frames, visually expanding the bedroom space, and adding a note of unusual sophistication.

The upper floor consists of the master bedroom, bathroom and walk-in wardrobe/dressing room. The panelled bedroom walls are painted white. Pale wood floors are carried through and onto the walls of the large wardrobe/dressing room and the drawer facings of the wardrobe island. Wardrobes are faced with transparent and vertically ribbed translucent glass panels in narrow gold-coloured metal frames. The rounded forms of B & B Italia bed and stools are complemented by custom designed bedside tables and a giant, circular ceiling-mounted lighting fixture. The Master bathroom is finished in grey-veined white marble tile, with gold-coloured fixtures, and there is a generous marble seat under the large window.

The apartment’s spaces have all been organised in such a way as to benefit from the light which penetrates throughout the apartment during the day. The resulting overall atmosphere is of light, joyous, refined elegance characterised by a genuine richness expressed through furniture, materials and finishing details, capable of suiting the daily lives of the people who live there.

The client engaged Maria Kardami Studio to curate the interior design of their modern luxury villa in Rolling Hills Luxury Residences, a new gated residential community – the first of its kind in Albania – set in the green and hilly area of south eastern Tirana.

The villa’s ground floor is bisected by a generously proportioned, long foyer tiled in black marble with white trim, leading from the front door to a large back patio overlooking the garden. A large kitchen with an island, a dining room and family room with fireplace and a guest W/C are on one side of the foyer, and a bar-lounge with another fireplace and a guest bedroom suite on the other.

For these living spaces, Maria Kardami Design Studio has achieved a sense of subtle cosiness and a pleasing interplay of materiality and light, with a simple but refined, effectively deployed palette. Panelled walls and curtains are white throughout except in the bar-lounge, where they are a pale taupe to creating a sense of warmth and intimacy. Kitchen surfaces and extractor hood are of white marble with black veining, as are the bathrooms. The ground floor rooms flow into each other, further integrated visually by golden-brown herringbone wood floors throughout and internal glazed double French doors with thin black metal frames which allow clear sightlines between the living spaces on both sides of the foyer. All upholstered furniture is creamy white, tables and chair frames are black, lighting fixtures are black or deep bronze.

A lift and an elegant circular black marble staircase, detailed with a black lacquer handhold, lead from the ground floor to the first floor, which contains the master bedroom suite with a spacious walk-in wardrobe and dressing room, two more bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, another guest suite and a kitchenette.

In a slightly lighter value, the ground floor colour scheme has been continued. The warm wood flooring visually integrates the first floor spaces and, as on the ground floor, panelled wood walls and floor to ceiling curtains are white. Windows have wide black trims and thin black metal frames. The walk-in wardrobe and dressing room are wood-panelled, with clear glass shelves and wardrobe doors and undershelf display lighting. Bathrooms are entirely tiled in white marble with pale grey veining, and the contemporary fixtures are gold-coloured.

These restful, quietly spacious bedrooms and spaces for rest and retreat are flooded with soft, bright light, and are defined by elegance and simplicity in forms, and the absence of anything superfluous.

This airy residence in a geometric, contemporary architectural style is situated in the luxury seaside town of Lagonisi, within the Athens metropolitan area. The client for this project was a young couple with children, and the architect has designed the elegantly simple, yet practical, spaces to integrate the building’s interior with the nature surrounding it.

Dark tile and pale marble floors throughout visually expand the interior spaces. These flow into each other and are otherwise decorated in a harmonious, neutral palette of white, cream, beige, grey and brown. Colour is provided by flowers, furniture, art, and sculptural works by the artist Vassiliki.

Narrow black metal window surrounds emphasise and tie together the building’s exterior and interior massing. A floor to ceiling glass screen with delicate black metal frames physically separates the kitchen and living rooms while visually unites them, and allows light to flood into the interior of the living spaces. A glass fireplace, set into a floor to ceiling window in the living room, gives the effect of a sophisticated outdoor campfire.

The total effect is one of simplicity and life-enhancing luxury without excess — a defining characteristic of Maria Kardami Design Studio’s work.

An existing house has been transformed by Maria Kardami Design Studio into an elegant and luxurious holiday villa with guest quarters and a separate spa, set into a series of stone-walled terraces on the shore of Ornos Bay, Mykonos.

Maria Kardami Design Studio renovated and modified the original building’s interior and designed the additional structures, fusing contemporary minimalist architectural elements with the clean white surfaces and cubist forms of traditional Cycladic building styles to create a fresh, new complex of structures harmoniously integrated into the stone and natural vegetation of the local landscape.

The buildings are aligned to make the most of the site’s orientation and topography, with a series of terraces that descend to the waterfront. The main residence is situated on the property’s highest level. Its flat roofs, white sculptural shapes and wooden doors echo Mykonos’ famous Cycladic vernacular style.

The attached terrace, with a traditional slatted wood pergola supported by massive wooden beams, overlooks a large swimming pool which has been built over the new guest quarters, set into the hillside one level down.

A separate building on the other side of the main residence houses the new spa, which has its own terrace, small pool, and gently curved seating area. Wide, shallow steps flanked by low stone walls lead from the main house down to the lower guest level with its terrace and seating area, and then descend further to the broad terrace on the waterfront.

This provides an ideal space for relaxing and entertaining, with generously proportioned dining and seating areas sheltered under wooden pergolas on either side of a free-form swimming pool sunk between palm trees. Further steps go down to the jetty where the client’s boat is moored.

The buildings’ flat roofs are planted with cacti and drought tolerant vegetation which also insulates the spaces below from the heat of the sun.

The terraces between the natural stone retaining walls are xeriscaped with plantings of grasses, large cacti and low palms interspersed with large boulders.

The design language of the exterior flows through to the interiors, which combine the straight lines and gentle curves of local design with a contemporary, minimalist aesthetic. Smooth, creamy white walls and floor throughout are made of a traditional mixture of lime, stone, marble dust and pigments, applied in multiple layers then waxed and polished. The material has a depth of colour and luminescent quality which creates a sense of cool, elegant spaciousness. Blonde wood ceiling beams in the living and the spa areas, and areas of native stone which have been left exposed, provide a textural and colour contrast.

Throughout all the rooms the deceptively simple yet sophisticated colour scheme is accented by wood, dark leather, bronze and gold fixtures, and stone in shades of buff and grey. The individual fixtures and furnishing elements are few and minimalist, adapted to the architectural aesthetic, and exquisitely designed. Generously proportioned sofas in the living room, upholstered in white, were created by Meridiani.

The simple, elegant contemporary furniture throughout the rest of the house, upholstered in the soft, natural colour of unbleached linen, was custom designed by Maria Kardami Studio. The residence’s technological infrastructure is discreetly integrated. All lighting is by Apparatus Studio.

In the spa areas, a rustic note is introduced by floors of large exposed pebbles, interspersed in the spa’s bathroom with large, oval stepping stones. The sink and countertop consist of one long, veined slab of marble, shelves are set into the wall, and a large floor to ceiling window looks into a small walled garden. In the spa’s massage room, instead of shelves, rectangular niches are set into one wall. The sink is created of a single block of grey stone, left rough except for the polished upper surface. Bronze taps and hanging wall lights add notes of contrasting luxury.
High glass sliding doors opening to a view of the sea admit a flood of light and air to the exercise and weight studio, which is furnished with dark brown leather and wood equipment and a few curving, sculptural tables, also in dark wood.

The spa’s Hammam is informed by the Cycladic tradition of carving rooms into hills and caves. An organically shaped, softly undulating shelf forms the seating around the semi-circular enclosed room, and the walls rise to a dome in an irregularly shaped waves, whose rippling quality is accentuated by muted pin lights.

The guest quarters are furnished with elegant simplicity. Dark wood platform beds and chaise longue are upholstered in creamy white, as are curving chairs — reminiscent of Cycladic sculpture — in front of dressing table mirrors accentuated by a thin, dark bronze frame. Bronze lighting fixtures and sculptural tables in silver and gold metal complete the furnishings. Niches behind the beds are a witty architectural reference to the interiors of Mykonos’ famous dovecotes.

The guest bathrooms are equally refined. Freestanding stone bathtubs and pedestal sinks are served by bronze taps, faucets and rainfall shower heads, and the shapes of both mirrors and adjacent wall niches echo those in the bedrooms.

The child’s bedroom is decorated in a softer, more muted version of the rest of the house. The wooden door and rafters are of blond wood, matched by wicker and light wood furniture and a simple braided rug. The light, airy space is adjoined by a playroom.

Villa Sebastian is an example of what can be achieved when an enlightened architect and sympathetic client work together. Bridging the past and the present — incorporating the local architectural vernacular and the contemporary aesthetic — it also respects Mykonos ‘spirit of place’, its landscape and climate.

Maria Kardami Design Studio has made the most of the interior of this modern residence in Kifisia to create an elegant, visually sophisticated living area from a relatively simple volumetric space.

Wide, pale plank wood flooring seems to expand the rooms and links them with the landscape seen through large floor-to-ceiling sliding doors framed in dark bronze metal. Bronze metal is also used for the long fireplace and shelf area that runs along the entire lower wall of the living room. The wall’s upper portion is painted a creamy white, as are the other walls and ceiling throughout

The open-plan kitchen’s counter tops are of black marble with pale veins, and cabinetry is painted black and is of minimalist design with no visible hardware. Careful massing of light and dark elements and volumes in the kitchen/living room areas adds both visual interest and a sense of spacious harmony to the interior. The ceiling in the central part of the living room is recessed, creating an impression of greater height.

The carefully selected sofa, dining chairs and coffee table by Meridiani adhere to the same restrained colour palette, as does the dining table by Gubi.

Maria Kardami Design Studio undertook the design and renovation of a penthouse loft in Palaio Psixiko, one of Athens’ greenest residential suburbs.

The new design is characterised by a decidedly contemporary, stripped-down urban elegance. The disciplined colour palette of black and white, with herringbone wood parquet flooring throughout, unites the modern open-plan interior and maximises the loft’s feeling of light and space. Furniture by B & B Italia is both sculptural and luxuriously comfortable.

Two walls, meeting at one corner, are fully glazed, offering expansive views over the city below and flooding the living spaces with light. Sliding doors with narrow black metal frames open the interior to a generous balcony wrapped around the two glazed sides of the apartment. They are shaded by contemporary iterations in black wood of the traditional slatted Greek pergola. Plants in containers and outside leisure furniture, also by B & B Italia, complete the unique living spaces of this beautiful eyrie.

The building is one of a group of small, environmentally responsible 3-story vacation homes designed by Evagelos & Panos Chatzis, situated at an altitude of 980m on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. It is located near a rocky stream and encircled by fir and chestnut trees.

Maria Kardami Design Studio has created an interior inspired by the surrounding landscape and the structure’s exterior of local stone and native timber cladding. The resulting living spaces have a contemporary quality which harmonises man-made structural elements with nature while avoiding the cliché of mountain rusticity.

The visual and structural focus of the top two floors is a geometrically perforated, gunmetal grey steel screen. This acts both as a double-height room divider, and to hide the integrated metal staircase leading from the loft area to the middle floor while still allowing light to permeate the interior. The perforations also admit light to a second set of wooden stairs descending to the bedrooms, bath, and sauna on the ground floor. The rich, dark metal contrasts with the smooth white walls and cinnamon coloured chestnut timber beams and ceiling. The rounded shape and grey colour of the sofa by Living Divani reference the local stone, as do round stools by Baxter Furniture.

The elegantly minimalist kitchen is finished in the softly mottled colour of blackened steel, matched by upholstered dining chairs by Baxter Furniture. The wood dining table is customised by Maria Kardami Design Studio to integrate with the wood floor and ceiling. Bathrooms are of dark grey marble subtly streaked with white, and plumbing fixtures of contemporary design are of matte black steel. Lighting fixtures by DCW Editions Paris are beautiful without calling attention to themselves.

The atmosphere of the home is one of comfort and relaxed, natural elegance, appropriate for all weathers and all seasons.

Architect, RK Architecture