block722 crowns athens apartment building with light-filled duplex home for its founders

Lumen Residence echoes mediterranean post-war optimism

Designed as the personal home of Block722 founders Katja Margaritoglou and Sotiris Tsergas, Lumen Residence brings the studio’s warm, curated sensibility to Athens’ leafy Papagou district, transforming a duplex apartment into both a family retreat and a study in contemporary urban living.

The residence occupies the top two levels of a five-unit building conceived and developed by Block722 with Thekla Construction. From the street, the structure reads as confident and geometric, balancing modern rigor with soft edges. Its volumes and timber detailing echo Athens’ postwar optimism, recalling mid-century forms backdropped by native Mediterranean plantings. 

The 230-square-meter duplex is organized with open, free-flowing interiors. The main level gathers living, dining, and kitchen spaces into an open plan delineated by furniture and subtle partitions. Each function is distinct yet connected, shaped by materials rather than rigid walls.

images © Ana Santl Andersen

block722’s palette of warm and natural materials

Every surface within the Lumen Residence has been considered by the team at Block722 for texture and touch. Travertino rosso, oiled timber, marble, and textured plaster lend warmth and depth, rendering the interiors in natural material expression. These choices will age gracefully, allowing the homes to evolve alongside its inhabitants. Custom-designed furniture and locally crafted details continue this sensibility and reveal Block722’s ongoing collaboration with local craftspeople.

On the upper level, the private quarters open to a planted terrace with a pool and deck. The terrace becomes both a lush retreat and an extension of day-to-day life, framing long views over Papagou’s green edges toward the city. The home’s southern orientation ensures that daylight floods interiors with sunlight, and links living spaces with the arc of the sun.

the duplex home in Papagou balances clarity of space with crafted warmth

wellness integrated into the architecture

With its Lumen Residence, Block722 treats the concept of ‘wellness’ as a spatial condition rather than an added amenity. Large openings invite natural air and views of surrounding greenery, while thresholds between inside and outside remain deliberately porous. The composition creates moments of stillness — places to gather, pause, or observe.

The residence also reflects the studio’s guiding approach of ‘organic luxury,’ a term they use to describe the union of thoughtful design with natural, authentic materials. Here, luxury lies in space to breathe, in the honesty of surfaces, in the continuity between structure and nature.

For Margaritoglou and Tsergas, creating their own home offered both freedom and responsibility. The process became a live experiment in the values of comfort and human connection which they bring to every commission.

Block722 designs the Lumen Residence with a focus on wellness and material depth

custom furniture and locally-crafted details strengthen the home’s tactile character

the building’s geometries echo mid-century Athens

an open plan lends fluid movement between living, dining, and kitchen areas

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an upper level terrace with a pool extends private rooms into planted outdoor space

 

 

 

 

 

 

fourth floor plan

fifth floor plan

south elevation (front facade)

east elevation

west elevation

north elevation

section

project info:

name: Lumen Residence

architect: Block722 | @block722architects

location: Athens, Greece

photographer: © Ana Santl Andersen | @iamnotana

interior design: Block722
landscaping: Block722
planting: Outside landscape architecture
main contractor: Θekla Construction
project manager: Vasiliki Moustafatzi
construction manager: Michael Gryllakis – Eleni Boni
procurement: Eleni Boni, Panagiotis Konstantopoulos, Sofia Stefanopoulou
lighting design: Placed – Block722