a+u's May issue features Point Supreme, an Athens-based architectural firm established by Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou in 2008. The couple studied architecture at National Technical University of Athens from the late 1990s to early 2000s before traveling to big cities like Rotterdam, London, and Tokyo, where they gained both research and practical knowledge. Upon their return to Athens, they began to avidly translate the various nuances they experienced abroad and to reexamine their native country's culture and built environment - the Greek landscape, the urban structure of Athens, and the celebration of everyday life. From interior designs of a typical apartment house in Athens to self-initiated urban proposals, 20 selected projects are presented in this issue alongside collages by Point Supreme. The architects use collage as representational language, a way to reveal the relationships that exist in each project - noting that collages "contain the complexity and depth that both the city and proposal parts should have, and avoid abstraction. These images are not a tool to escape reality, but they represent physical realities, individual memories, and fragments of time. Without being overly methodological with their design, Point Supreme confronts and draws inspiration from the reality before them with optimism, candidly moving back and forth in their work between interior and city, vernacular and global, and the mundane and the festive.
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