Local Local transforms an Athenian apartment into its new studio

After several years working from founder Sofia Xanthakou’s Plaka House beneath the Acropolis, Local Local has moved into its first permanent studio, a ground-floor apartment on a tree-lined street in Kolonaki. The move gives the growing five-person practice more room to work together, in a space shaped around its everyday needs. As the space is rented, the refurbishment focused on light-touch interventions. Original wooden floors were repaired and lightened, rippled-glass doors restored and the walls painted white to brighten the rooms, which receive limited direct sunlight. The apartment’s arched entrance was retained, preserving the character of the existing interior. Furniture has developed in a similarly informal way. A solid cypress table, designed by Xanthakou’s cousin and discovered as she moved into the apartment, became the starting point for the communal desks designed by Local Local. Office chairs brought out of storage add to the assembled quality of the workspace. One wall is dedicated to Xanthakou’s library, built up over almost a decade of studying and working between Athens, Boston and London. The books sit on Vitsoe shelving beneath lights by Michael Anastassiades, while a long pistachio-colored pinboard provides space for drawings, references and ideas to be displayed and discussed away from the screen. The former bedroom wardrobe was retained, with its doors replaced by roll-up blinds to create open storage for samples and paperwork. At the entrance, two marble pieces by artist Theodore Psychoyos form a console and seat, introducing a material that appears frequently in Local Local’s work. The studio has been conceived as a space that can evolve over time, with room for books, samples, drawings and objects to find their place as the practice grows. The result is a simple, functional workplace shaped as much by daily use as by its architecture.