The Architect Duo Transforming Spaces Big and Small

THE SHARPEST MINDS in architecture can work both large scale and small bore. With offices in their native Greece as well as New York City, Leonidas Trampoukis and Eleni Petaloti of LOT architects are up-and-comers who are proving this golden rule. Whether it’s an entire housing complex in their hometown of Thessaloniki or a deceptively simple piece of furniture from their Objects of Common Interest line, the husband-and-wife team has a knack for form—especially in their well-thought-out concept sketches. “We don’t have a particular style, so we work with the client most intensely in the conceptual stage to get them what they want,” says Trampoukis, who, like Petaloti, is 34 and studied architecture at Columbia University.

There’s no better example of that than LOT’s striking scheme for Nolita, the 80-seat restaurant opening this month at the Semiramis Hotel in Athens. For the client—the Greek Cypriot industrialist and art collector Dakis Joannou—Trampoukis first sketched a line drawing of the plan (a gut renovation of a space Karim Rashid designed in 2004) to show how each element would function. He describes the concept as “something between a living room and a trattoria,” a vision that has been fleshed out with leather, tile, warm lighting and white marble tables.

Trampoukis and Petaloti got to know Joannou on a previous project, the open-air Pazuzu Beach Club, which opened last year on Corfu, a Greek island not exactly known for cutting-edge design. The zigzagging bamboo roof, hanging over an elegant space with a perforated-metal room divider, did the trick for the discerning Joannou. “He knows what he wants, but he doesn’t instruct—he collaborates,” says Trampoukis.

Also debuting this month from LOT is an inventive public artwork in Manhattan’s Flatiron plaza, the firm’s winning entry in a competition sponsored by the Van Alen Institute. Imagine a series of lighted tubes laid out in dramatic arcs. “It allows you to look around the city and engage with the landmarks,” says Petaloti.

Stools, the most elemental seating form there is, are one of the strong suits in LOT’s Objects of Common Interest line. The most beguiling of them has a yellow resin top that appears lit from within; a row of white marble slats forms the solid and serene base. “It’s a microscale version of architecture,” says Trampoukis of their furniture. And like all of LOT’s work, it feels built to last.