DOPE Roasting Co. is an espresso bar & coffee roasting, with an in-house bakery housed in a 19th century neoclassical building located on the corner between Vissis and Athinas street in the center of Athens. The space is organized between two levels, the ground floor which has direct access to Vissis street and the upper mezzanine floor.

The building’s long course throughout the previous decades is made obvious through the ‘marks’ found on the interior wall façade. These traces of wear on the wall have been preserved and in agreement with the owners served as a starting point for the conceptual design of the space.

The building’s history, the character of the area, the morphology of the urban fabric, the atmosphere, and the aesthetics that the owners wanted, in addition to modern needs and the modern way of life composed the project’s design axes that were followed throughout the study of a space with a multifaceted character, harmonized with the present but with a clear and linear connection to the building’s past.
The main design challenge was the need for the coexistence of four different functions (production and supply of coffee, coffee roasting, bakery, and customer seating) in a distinct and harmonious way inside the store. The establishment, performance, and aesthetics of the above, had to seamlessly work together while maintaining their distinct functions within the atmosphere and desired style of the space.

Due to the use of the space, the place hosts visitors mainly during the day. For this reason, the installment of six large scale skylights were suggested bringing an abundance of natural daylight into the store, which in combination with the green wall situated across the entry create the feeling of a semi-indoor-outdoor space on the ground floor. Additionally, the two large windows of the facades, which open vertically are instrumental in transferring the urban life inside the shop, filtered by the atmosphere of DOPE.

The selected patterns, the geometries that were followed, the rough surfaces of the building’s walls that were preserved in combination with timeless materials such as marble, wood, metal, cement, enameled tiles, and reinforced glass created a hybrid set faithful to the original design directions.
The color palette that was used followed the company’s corporate identity shades combining it with shades of white, black and the natural color of many implemented materials.