VASSILIS SIAFARICAS's Boomerang Athens Urban House presents a compelling nocturnal facade study captured during the blue hour, where a rigorously orthogonal architectural composition unfolds across a

VASSILIS SIAFARICAS's Boomerang Athens Urban House presents a vertical architectural composition captured during the transitional blue hour, where a precisely articulated residential facade rises thro

Boomerang Athens Urban House by VASSILIS SIAFARICAS presents a sophisticated aerial study of contemporary residential architecture where crisp white stucco surfaces meet the punctuation of verdant pla

Crisp perpendicularity governs the facade of this vertical urban dwelling, where slender white corrugated metal cladding rises as a rhythmic textural field across the building's primary face, establis

An expansive interior volume announces itself through pale honey-toned timber flooring that extends across the entire picture plane, its linear grain creating subtle directional vectors that guide the

Bronze Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design · 2026

Boomerang Athens Urban House

by Vassilis Siafaricas

A' Design Award 2026 Bronze Winner in Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
Awarded April 15, 2026
CLIENT: EclÉde
Estimated Number of Design Views: 8,326
Verification code 63B48F62DB · Verify this award

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About Boomerang Athens Urban House

Conceived as an urban oasis on Lycabettus Hill, Boomerang Athens presents a calm architectural presence shaped by controlled openings and a vertical shading system that regulates privacy, light, and heat. A refined palette of metal, wood, and marble adds warmth to its minimalist character. The rooftop forms an elevated living landscape with a pool, and the illuminated Boomerang Pergola defines the silhouette at night. As the first leed platinum certified residence in Greece, the house combines sustainability and high environmental performance with everyday comfort through knx programming.

VASSILIS SIAFARICAS's Boomerang Athens Urban House emerges from the contemporary discourse surrounding sustainable urban densification, where architects confront the challenge of creating humane, environmentally responsive dwellings within tightly constrained Mediterranean urban fabrics characterized by narrow plots, party wall adjacencies, and demanding solar exposure conditions. This facade composition demonstrates how thoughtful material selection, passive environmental strategies, and layered spatial organization can transform a modest urban infill site into a residence that breathes, filters light, ensures privacy while maintaining visual connection, and integrates vegetation as essential rather than ornamental. The vertical slatted screen system that dominates the middle register represents a sophisticated reinterpretation of traditional Mediterranean architectural devices for solar control and privacy mediation, echoing the mashrabiya screens of Islamic architecture, the louvered shutters of vernacular Mediterranean building, and the permeable boundaries characteristic of Japanese residential traditions, yet executed with contemporary material precision and integrated into a rigorously geometric compositional framework. The warm timber tones of the slats create tactile visual warmth while the regular vertical rhythm establishes a kinetic quality as one imagines moving past the facade, the slats creating a moiré effect and revealing interior glimpses through parallax. The lighting strategy reveals exceptional sophistication, with concealed uplighting at the facade base creating dramatic vertical light washes that emphasize the material texture and establish the building as a softly glowing presence in the evening streetscape, while warm interior illumination filters through both the central window opening and the permeable slat zones, creating a welcoming domestic glow that suggests habitation and life within while maintaining privacy through the screening effect. The rooftop plantings introduce a crucial biophilic dimension, bringing living vegetation into the dense urban context, providing cooling evapotranspiration, absorbing stormwater, creating habitat, and establishing visual softness that counterbalances the geometric discipline below, while olive or similar Mediterranean species selection suggests climatic appropriateness and water conservation. The composition achieves a refined balance between protective enclosure necessary in dense urban conditions and the transparency and connection that prevent claustrophobic isolation, creating what appears to be a breathing, permeable boundary rather than a sealed defensive wall. The work invites consideration of how sustainable residential architecture in dense urban contexts can move beyond mere energy efficiency metrics toward a more holistic conception of environmental responsibility that includes material longevity, passive climate adaptation, biophilic integration, and the creation of humane dwelling environments that enhance rather than diminish urban quality of life, prompting viewers to contemplate what makes a house not merely sustainable in technical terms but genuinely nurturing as a place of daily inhabitation.

Press Kit

Unique Properties: Boomerang Athens is a 425 square meter filtered urban oasis: a monolithic volume wrapped in a ribbed second skin brise soleil that controls privacy, glare, and heat while framing precise carved openings. Natural materials, wood and marble, add warmth to a calm minimal palette. A roofscape with pool and the illuminated boomerang pergola completes the experience. First leed platinum residential in Greece, with knx scenes coordinating lighting, shading, and hvac for comfort and low energy.
Dimensions & Packaging: 425 square meter residential townhouse, arranged over five levels, three above grade, ground, and one basement. The house has four bedrooms, six bathrooms, roof pool, gym, lounge, elevator. Leed platinum, first certified residential project in Greece. Systems used as heat pumps, vrv and vrf, underfloor heating, pv and solar, knx automation for lighting, shading, hvac heat scenes.
Tags: leed platinum, knx, smart home, luxury urban house
Production Technology: Made through an iterative performance and craft method, as massing and openings were tuned with daylight and heat control goals, then refined into a ribbed second skin brise soleil for privacy and shading. Natural, durable finishes as wood floors, marble in wet and exterior areas, were selected for longevity and low emission specs aligned with leed platinum. Knx integrates lighting, shading, and hvac into scenes, reducing waste while improving comfort.
Design Challenge: The key challenge was creating privacy and calm in a dense Lycabettus hill while opening to light and views. Obstacles included tight urban constraints, neighborhood sensitivities, and integrating spa and pool plus five level circulation within a compact footprint. Leed platinum demanded rigorous material and iaq documentation and commissioning, while local supply chains required careful sourcing and detailing. Knx integration aligned multiple trades into one reliable, user friendly system.
Project Duration: Design developed through a full shell reconstruction process, existing residence originally built in 2010, culminating in the completed boomerang athens as a 425 square meter five level townhouse in Lycabettus, Athens. The project achieved leed platinum certification, first cerified residential project in Greece, marking its delivery as both an architectural and performance benchmark. Started in 2024 and completed in September 2025.
Operation Flow: Operated through curated knx scenes that coordinate lighting, shading, and hvac. Arrival opens paths and comfort zones. Daylight optimizes glare and shade. Entertain sets layered lighting and ventilation. Spa pre conditions hammam and gym. Night secures and dims. Away reduces loads. The brise soleil facade and boomerang pergola passively filter sun and privacy, so systems work less, delivering steadier comfort with lower energy.
Research: Type of research is applied building performance. Research objectives are comfort, privacy, daylight, low energy. Methodology is iterate massing and openings and second skin shading to leed goals. Data collection and research tools used are climate and daylight checks, energy and iaq targets, voc data. Participants or experiments are design and mep team, knx scene tuning. Results are leed platinum, lower glare and loads. Insights and impacts are passive filtering reduces system work. Effect is higher value, greener urban housing model.
Inspiration: Boomerang was inspired by the idea that what you give to the environment comes back to you. We translated this into a second skin townhouse that filters light, heat, and privacy through a ribbed brise soleil, carving precise openings for framed views of Athens. The research backbone is leed driven performance because of energy, materials, iaq and more and knx automation that choreographs lighting, shading and hvac into low energy comfort scenes, proof that sustainability returns as quality of life.
Image Credits: Louisa Nikolaidou