The former primary school of “Rigas Feraios” is being refurbished to accommodate the American College of Thessaloniki. The complete renovation and energy upgrade of the building and its surroundings translates into their complete functional, constructional and morphological modernization to function as a modern sustainable educational building meeting the ACT’s requirements.

Designed by the architect Athanasios Barzoukas in 1974, the building consists of an oblong volume along the axis of North-South, spanning on four levels, yet appearing as a two-storey building due to the slope of the site. It features mono-pitched roofs, east-facing classrooms and the absence of a traditional circulation core, as access to the several floors is via ramps that dominate the west part of the floor plans.

The new design aims at establishing a new connection between the refurbished building and the other buildings of the campus of ACT, both morphologically and functionally. For this purpose, a new-glazed entrance was designed on the east elevation of the building also creating a new entrance hall, located at the heart of the building where the new addition of a lift is also attached, and the circulation-ramps commence. The new lift and external staircases are the only elements that are added to the mass of the building. In order to transform the typical morphology of a classical two-storey building with continuous balconies that run along the east elevation, a new building skin was designed, as a strong unifying architectural feature of the new design, consisting of vertical cor-ten beams configured in high density. This metallic new skin functions both as a safety guardrail for the balconies and as a shading system for the 13 east-facing classrooms. In the new design the presence of the internal ramps is enhanced on the west elevation of the building by the form of the new sloping windows. The mono-pitched roofs are clad in zinc like all the rest of the ACT buildings and remain visible in the interior, as the false ceilings in the classrooms required for accommodating lighting and HVAC systems consist of a free-floating aluminium-mesh suspended system.