CHRO.PEI Athens, Greece

Creation of an Innovation Polis in Athens at City Block 63, Neo Faliro (Municipality of Piraeus), on the former CHRO.PEI industrial site at 62 Pireos Avenue. The 17,868.69 m² plot contains listed industrial buildings and is owned by EOF, which has granted its use to the Ministry of Development & Investments to establish a state-managed innovation district co-locating startups, corporate R&D, academia, and incubators/accelerators, alongside public-facing programs (events, F&B, culture). The project preserves emblematic heritage elements—such as the water tower and chimney—reconstructs key street façades on Katsoulakou and Mourati, and maintains the site’s inward-looking campus logic with inter-building bridges; new vertical additions are expressed in contemporary materials to remain clearly legible as additions. A flexible, high-bay Innovation Hall—reconfigurable for exhibitions, prototyping, conferences, or office/lab layouts—anchors the eastern half of the campus, while the western half forms a generous public courtyard with Mediterranean planting and a microclimatic water feature, framed by active ground-floor retail and F&B. Taller volumes line Pireos Avenue to buffer noise and cold winds, with lower massing to the south to admit sunlight and respect neighborhood scale; green roofs contribute to bioclimatic performance. Sustainability measures include a roof-level energy canopy with photovoltaics to cover a substantial portion of operational demand and north-facing roof apertures for diffuse daylighting, with universal accessibility provided across the campus. The program mix includes offices and co-working, education spaces, a conference center, cultural venue, library, gym, clinics, administration, hospitality, and F&B—organized to activate ground levels and courtyards while keeping the core adaptable for evolving innovation uses.