Kallisperi's House - A Kollegium at the Foot of the Acropolis

When Sevasti Kallisperi became the first Greek woman to earn a university degree, she resolved that she would not be the last. As a writer, activist, and education reformer, she devoted her life to the struggle for women’s access to education, and when she passed away in 1953, she bequeathed her entire estate to the cause — including her home. The recipient was the Greek state, and she wished the gift to form the foundation of an institution focused on education and community. 

This vision was never realized, and after seven decades little remains of Kallisperi’s legacy. The fortune is gone, and the house has been left to decay and oblivion, noticed only by the homeless, robbers, or history enthusiasts who peer in behind fallen walls and collapsed roofs. In the small rooms, the elements have eaten through the floors or covered them with fine carpets of pale green grass. Furniture, artworks, and libraries were long ago looted, and the ransacked spaces bear little trace of the dream of a modern Greece once shaped within these walls. 

Sevasti Kallisperi had few neighbors when she purchased the four plots of land and settled in the desolate area south of the Acropolis in 1911. Whereas the neoclassical townhouse at the time mirrored only the cliff and the ancient ruins, today it lies at the heart of the metropolis of Athens. 

It is not the first time that a building on this very site has fallen into ruin. Beneath layers of soil and rubble lie the remains of houses erected and toppled over several millennia. The archaeological and the architectural converge here, forming the material foundation for the project’s investigations. 

The complex stands as a palimpsest — a built body in which the deposits of time and cultural traces settle upon and within one another, and where contemporary political and economic conditions threaten the existence of the listed building.

In collaboration with Albert Rygg Karberg.

"The abandoned plot beneath the Acropolis serves as a reminder of the monumental modern Greek apathy"

 

- Eleftherios G. Skiadas, Chair of the Athens City Council, 2020

During a four-week stay in Athens, the site gradually revealed itself as more than an abandoned building complex. Like much of the city, it exists in what Jonathan Sergison has described as a “perennial state of incompleteness”. Buildings remain unfinished, altered, extended and adapted over time, creating an urban landscape characterised less by fixed compositions than by continuous transformation. Kallisperi’s House embodies this condition. Beneath the site lie the remains of the Themistoclean Wall and parts of the House of Proclus, while the existing buildings record successive phases of occupation, construction and neglect. The site can therefore be understood as a palimpsest in which different historical periods coexist rather than replace one another. Rather than viewing this complexity as a problem to be resolved, the project takes it as the fundamental condition from which the proposal emerges. 

The project is grounded in extensive fieldwork carried out on site in Athens. Through measured drawings, 3D scanning, photographic documentation and material registration, the complex was recorded from landscape to architectural detail. Doors, windows, masonry, plaster, structural systems and loose stone fragments were documented and analysed as part of a broader effort to understand not only the buildings themselves, but also the processes that have shaped them over time. This work revealed a complex material reality. The buildings are neither pristine heritage objects nor complete ruins, but structures suspended somewhere in between. Existing plaster survives alongside exposed masonry, later repairs coexist with original fabric, and fragments of former architectural elements remain scattered throughout the site. These observations became central to the development of the project's restoration strategy. 

The complex consists of four distinct buildings constructed by Sevasti Kallisperi between 1911 and 1930. Although they form a coherent ensemble, each building possesses its own architectural character, construction history and state of preservation. This led to a differentiated transformation approach. The corner building is treated primarily through restoration and careful repair, reflecting its architectural significance as the most complete and representative part of the complex. The annex is approached conservatively due to its relatively intact condition. The side building, by contrast, is already a composite structure formed through successive additions and alterations. Here the project allows greater freedom for adaptation and extension. Rather than applying a uniform strategy across the site, the proposal acknowledges that different parts of the complex call for different architectural responses. Restoration, repair, reuse and addition are therefore employed simultaneously, allowing the existing diversity of the site to remain legible. 

The decision to transform the complex into a student residence emerged from both the history of the site and contemporary conditions in Athens. In her will, Sevasti Kallisperi expressed the wish that her estate should continue to serve education after her death. While a girls’ school no longer reflects present-day Greek society, access to affordable student housing remains a significant challenge for many young people moving to Athens to study. The proposal therefore reinterprets Kallisperi’s ambition through a contemporary collegium. Accommodating 22 rooms and up to 31 residents, the project introduces a housing typology that is relatively uncommon in Athens. Whereas many existing student residences function as large dormitories organised around private units, the project explores the potential of a more collective way of living, inspired by the Nordic collegium tradition while remaining sensitive to local expectations of privacy. The organisation of the programme follows the logic of the existing buildings. Thick stone walls, inherited room structures and established circulation patterns are retained wherever possible. Instead of reshaping the buildings to fit a predetermined programme, the programme is adapted to the spatial qualities already present on the site. 

A central challenge of the project was how to increase capacity without compromising the archaeological and architectural significance of the site. Because much of the ground is protected and potentially contains undiscovered remains, minimising new excavation became an important principle. The proposal therefore concentrates new construction above the existing side building in the form of a lightweight timber addition. The intervention provides additional accommodation while avoiding the need for new foundations. Constructed in chestnut timber, a material deeply rooted in Greek building traditions, the addition distinguishes itself from the historic structures while remaining subordinate to them. The new volume follows the existing hierarchy of the complex. Its height remains below that of the corner building, and its organisation draws upon the site's changing topography. External walkways, terraces and stairways connect the buildings while reducing the need for internal circulation, allowing movement through the project to remain closely tied to the landscape.

Kallisperi’s House is not conceived as a return to an earlier state, nor as an attempt to recover a lost ideal. The project accepts the site as it is found: layered, incomplete and shaped by successive periods of construction, occupation and neglect. Rather than privileging a single moment in its history, the proposal seeks to make room for all of them.

The intervention adds another layer to this palimpsest. Existing and new elements remain distinguishable, yet are brought into dialogue through a shared response to materiality, scale and place. In doing so, the project continues the site's history rather than attempting to restore a singular past.