Passer Domesticus
Passer Domesticus is a two storey 1924 historical building, reborn into a unique compact living space for short term habitation and city break experiences.
Originaly a tradesman's fabrics shop and later a fishing accessories store, Passer Domesticus is dedicated to modern urban living, along with experiencing much of its past era atmosphere.
The aim of the project is to enable people to experience living into a street level shop environment, and feel the city’s vibe from a closer, warmer and more personal perspective.
Passer Domesticus is a two storey 1924 historical building, reborn into a unique compact living space for short term habitation and city break experiences.
Originaly a tradesman's fabrics shop and later a fishing accessories store, Passer Domesticus is dedicated to modern urban living, along with experiencing much of its past era atmosphere.The aim of the project is to enable people to experience living into a street level shop environment, and feel the city’s vibe from a closer, warmer and more personal perspective.Away from the city’s usuall busy mood, standing into a small historical neighborhood into the heart of the city, Passer Domesticus ground level - stand alone habitation, becomes an experience itself, a reminder of characteristics found in small scale societies, greek villages and city neighborhoods of the past.Passer Domesticus aims to additionally offer private - in place - experiences to its guests, such as exclusive dinners, private small music concerts, small exhibitions hosting and guided historic retrospectives.
“Passer Domesticus”, on its latin definition, is the little bird of the sparrow genus “Passer”, native in the Mediterranean region and strongly associated with human habitations into urban settings.“Passer” as someone -like the sparrow birds- who passes by and “domestic”, as the definition of the urban space, Passer Domesticus becomes a little nest inside the urban environment to host all romantic urban nomads.After the city’s big fire of 1917, which destroyed almost the entire of Thessaloniki’s centre, the district was rebuild with a simple and repetitive architectural typical model.Two storey small buildings, with basement, internal steep stairs and a flat roof where built, of 4x4 or 4x8 meters floor plan, continuing facades and newbyzantine windows devided with small decorative external columns with capitals.The majority of those buildings, dated around the 1920, where occupied by immigant tradesmen, who came with their families from then known as Anatolia and different parts of Europe to open their local business, resulting into the creation of a market neighborhood.Up to this day, most of them are left non-ocqupied or used as storages, others opperate as touristic tavernas while very few still host trade activities.Passer Domesticus building belongs to the territory of the famous commercial market of the “Bezesten”, the Ottoman fabrics and gold market, which was build in the15th century.
Our main focus while designing Passer Domesticus was to combine the multicultural language of this, originally immigrational small building, built with new-byzantine and neoclassical elements, together with modern folk elements that arise the historical nature of the space and connect it instantly with the history of the city, while also insert very contemporary and stylish details and elements, to emphasize the diversity of the space.The fine balance between the above, resulted into a fully personalised, unique and cohesive space with intense aroma of its past.Passer Domesticus is a two storey, yet four level space, including basement, ground floor, mezzanine, and first floor, while ending on a flat roof.The space is designed to be playful, offering new spacial experiences.The first floor opperates as the main salone, with a resting area, a dinner / working table, small kiitchenette and sink and a large clear glass facade torwards the street.Whitened birch plywood coutch and details, raw mdf cabinet to retain the texturing and white & light warm grey shades on the walls and glossy white painted cement floor, are carefully combined with a dark green marble countertop, the old green painted staircase, the pale blue original metalic roll-tops -intensionally left visible on the inside, dark wooden antique furnitures and contemporary lights, designed by our studio, by using natural leather, cement and plywood. Parts of the old original faded texturing on the walls is intentionally left uncovered, as a reminder of its past chroma, which eventually becomes the only color on the walls, while uncovered also are left all electrical and hyrdaulic networks, to add to the space character.
The mezzanine, is specially built with a white strong fisherman’s net, inspired from the building’s previous use as a fish accesories store. Tied on a perimetrical metal structure, it offers the space a comfortable and very trendy area of resting, while becoming an architectural element alone, which adds more texturing and style to the space with its transpanency, allowing the space to have an extra level, without lossing its impressive double height! In the bedroom area, the old wooden floor is retained and refurbished, painted glossy white, while a plywood volume becomes the bed itselt. An open closet is designed to be hanging over the staircase gap, with an old wooden ladder -found on site- used as a barrier and a place to leave clothes at the same time. The intentionally left rusty metallic window roll tops, and semi transparent papper curtains attached on the windows, complete the super calm feeling of the bedroom. The bathroom area at the basement, has a mixed old Monumental / Cycladitic style feeling. Design pays special attention to the natural light that comes in from the cour anglaise, creating a private garden of plants and stones in the lighted area. The use of reddish brick and pink marble, is a direct reference to the Bezesten famous Ottoman market building, which stands next corner, while the atmosphere is completed with the use of raw cement texturing on the floor and the cement staircase.
