Homes with gardens, double-height interiors, panoramic views, and architectural intensity: the Shinto apartment building responds to the evolving demands of contemporary living in the southern suburbs of Athens. Drawing inspiration from a tradition that honors the invisible and translates the natural into rhythm, the building composes a spatial experience with enduring resonance.
In a different yet converging way, the new Shinto residential building, located at the corner of Oinois and Eleftherias Streets in Glyfada, articulates a housing model that reconsiders the typology of the Athenian polykatoikia. The name “Shinto” was not chosen for effect. It borrows not an aesthetic, but a way of understanding space from the Japanese tradition: an organic relationship attuned to place, climate, materials, and light. Shinto, as a worldview, is not based on doctrine or central sacred symbols, but on a lived connection to the everyday and the natural. Its architecture is expressed through transitions, thresholds, and atmospheres that gradually intensify, shaping spatial conditions of heightened density.
In this spirit, the Shinto building organizes the experience of living as a composition of relationships and conditions. The complexity of its corner plan is translated into a linear volume that unfolds with internal rhythm. Each level establishes its own dialogue with the view, the light, and privacy, responding to orientation and elevation.
Shinto merges the format of a multi-unit apartment block with the qualities of a single-family residence: independence, courtyard, vertical openness, directionality. It addresses urban density with spatial variation and sculptural intensity, proposing an architectural language that operates on multiple levels. Diagonal and sloped pergolas introduce a dialogue between solid volumes and void. The composition is structured around a clear vertical core that evolves without fragmentation. Slanted lines, prismatic panels, and exposed concrete pergolas with triangular apertures function as filters of light and spatial transition. Views are guided and framed without being obstructed.
Shinto merges the format of a multi-unit apartment block with the qualities of a single-family residence: independence, courtyard, vertical openness, directionality. It addresses urban density with spatial variation and sculptural intensity, proposing an architectural language that operates on multiple levels. Diagonal and sloped pergolas introduce a dialogue between solid volumes and void. The composition is structured around a clear vertical core that evolves without fragmentation. Slanted lines, prismatic panels, and exposed concrete pergolas with triangular apertures function as filters of light and spatial transition. Views are guided and framed without being obstructed.
The ground-floor residence unfolds across three levels, connected to the street through a planted forecourt and featuring a double-height interior that draws the sky into the space. On the intermediate floors, the apartments open wide toward the exterior, with balconies that act as interstitial zones. On the top two floors, the residence is split between attic and main volume, with the view gradually opening up as one ascends.
The geometry of the façade acts as a mechanism for integrating diversity into a unified rhythm. Its material palette – marble, aluminium, glass – supports this logic: it synchronizes the surfaces, gives continuity to the eye, and incorporates technical elements seamlessly. The metal structures on the side façades, calibrated bay windows, semi-outdoor filters, and subtle boundaries evoke the logic of torii, the transitional gates of Shinto architecture: elements that create gradations, emphasize the experience of passage, and reinforce the relationship with the surrounding environment.
The planted ground floor improves the site’s microclimate and reintroduces nature at street level. The pool contributes to the small-scale ecosystem and enhances the daily experience of water in the urban fabric.
The Shinto apartment building frames domestic life as a continuous dialogue with light, air, scale, and transformation. Rather than forming fixed centers, it weaves a mesh of relationships. It proposes an architectural condition defined by transitions, gradations, and correlations. Αn experience that unfolds as it is traversed and inhabited.
Architectural Design: KKMK Architects
Design team: Karagianni Katerina, Karamali Marina, Dimitris Chiotakis
Photography: Panayiotis Voumvakis