K-Studio is an architectural interior design company based in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 2002 by Dimitris and Konstantinos Karampatakis. The aim is to create elaborate designs inspired by tradition, rich materiality and contemporary life. Rooted in the design practice of architecture, K-Studio is known for its novel, dynamic approach to architectural interventions. Since 2002, they have built a series of projects inside and outside Greece: from shops, bars and restaurants to hotel rooms, apartments and new homes.

Yinji: In the 2020 AHEAD Global Ultimate Honor Award competition, there are Aman Yangyun in Shanghai and Rosewood Bangkok, but the hotel you renovated successfully stood out and became the ultimate winner. Can you tell us about this project? What do you think is the winning condition for it to stand out?

K-Studio：The owner and visionary spirit behind this project, Nikos Karaflos, made a very bold decision to pursue the very challenging mission that Dexamenes have been. He’s the one who inspired us and made us rise up to the occasion.The very object of the project, the repurposing of an emblematic building complex, in an amazing location was also part of the charm: an unexpected beautiful stretch of a quiet sandy beach, enriched by the deep history of the old factory. Timeless materials make a building that has a story to tell. In many ways, Dexamenes were a very challenging project, due to the heavy load of responsibility towards such a rich starting point. From another point of view, one could say it was an easy project, because all the possible ingredients needed were already there. We felt that our proposal should be more about preserving this character and feeling of being there, rather than introducing a new interpretation

Yinji: Where does your passion for design come from? What kind of opportunity made you choose to become a designer?

K-Studio：We come from a family where our father, an architect, “brainwashed” us by bringing us with him to construction sites from a young age. This definitely instilled in us a love and interest in the making process, and got us in the idea of studying and practicing architecture. This very love of making has turned into a driving force for our own studio. We focus on design through the lens of making methods, materiality and technology. Another key figure has been Will Alsop, as we both worked in his studio as young apprentices, and that;s where we were exposed to a large and enormously talented team that got us to understand deeply how a multidisciplinary team can add real value and texture to an architectural discourse, and more importantly how it can inform and evolve a proposal. That’s also where we got infected with the idea that we truly wanted to practice architecture that revels in complexity and is the product of such a discourse. So we set out to build a team that in its inception has that need for a greater team to work.

Yinji: If you summarize your design concept into a paragraph or a few keywords, how would you describe it?

K-Studio：The studio adopts a holistic, contextual approach to the place we are found on each occasion. Thinking further than the mere building envelope, we imagine the actual feeling of being there, we construct stories for the visitor/inhabitant. The building we design will be the tool that will provide this multi-sensory experience. We see design as a way to tell spatial stories, through architecture, interior and hardscape design, in order to produce unique and immersive experiences. This script needs to fit in multiple narratives, rather than a single-dimensional one. We are seeking to give constant responses and revelations of aspects.In order to provide appropriate and meaningful proposals, we take very seriously the fact that each place has different needs. We try hard to have a thorough understanding of the site and program, that will lead us to the appropriate comment/design as a response to the brief.And of course, every time we confront a different context: from the dry and windy cycladic, rocky islands, to the lush tropics of Panama, the dense Kuala Lumpur urban center, the old grey buildings of London, the concrete dense Athens, among others. Each opportunity is faced with its contextual approach, in order to avoid the superficial, aesthetic fit-in but rather achieve a deep cultural understanding. We take on board construction methods and locally sourced materials, but also idiosyncrasies, lifestyles and attitudes. We cross-breed those with the features and values we carry in our DNA, from the arsenal of previous experiences we have learned from. We seek to integrate and interplay local with global findings.We are very lucky that our practice takes us to some of the most extraordinary places around the globe. This is very humbling as it is exciting, to confront the natural sceneries with all the responsibility this opportunity comes with: to preserve and respect the place you are invited to introduce something that is not yet born.

Yinji: How do you see the development trend of hotel design in 2021 or in the future?

K-Studio：We have been observing, and are rather excited in doing so, that over the past few years there has been a rise of architecture and design practices from off-centered places of the world. In that sense, the trend-setting cities we knew so far have been off-throned, and there is no longer one unique mainstream dictating temporary trends in design, but rather many different cores representing their very own and diverse interpretations of contemporary design. This is very liberating to us as designers, to no longer have to “obey” to fashion statements that came from places very different from our own and mentalities and methodologies strange to our mediterranean heritage. At the same time, it is a great source of inspiration.