‘OTE Offices’. Athinas street is one of the oldest urban axis in the city of Athens. Near the central Market of Athens is located one of the main buildings belonging to OTE-Estate, a company affiliated with the National Telecommunication company of Greece, OTE. The project focuses on the renovation of an existing four-storey building, which serves as the heart of telecommunication services in the center of Athens. Therefore, the “guts” of the building, huge ducts full of vertical cables- drive the main architectural idea: instead of hiding the gathered volumetric cables, the architects decide to reveal them as the core element of the identity of the Telecommunication company and exhibit them in glass vertical boxes with cove lighting. This architectural idea of exposure generates a series of glass ‘aquariums’, in which the cables are lightened and exhibited in order to address the identity of the company, to keep the memory and the history of their performance vivid, live and visible to workers and visitors.
