What happens when an industrial building no longer serves its original purpose? All too often, the answer is familiar: abandonment, sealed openings and an empty shell left behind as the city continues to evolve around it. At the Port of Thessaloniki, however, the historic PAEGAE building (Privileged General Warehouses of Greece S.A.) is taking a different path. Floating Grid, the restoration and adaptive reuse project by architectural practice Deda & Architects, gives the building a new role within the contemporary urban landscape.
Built between 1927 and 1928 and covering approximately 15,000 sq m, the former warehouse has been transformed into a contemporary office building with dining spaces. The scheme combines structural reinforcement, functional reorganisation and energy upgrades, while preserving the defining elements of its industrial character.
This is precisely where the value of adaptive reuse lies. Rather than replacing a building with its own history, it allows it to remain an active part of the city, adapted to contemporary needs. In the case of PAEGAE, the industrial heritage of the port is brought into dialogue with a new everyday life of work, hospitality and public activity.
The four-storey building is organised into two volumes and four structurally independent sections, connected by a central internal arcade and bridge-like passages. The intervention preserves the rhythm and grid of the façades, while enlarged openings and a repeated window system bring greater unity and coherence to the building as a whole.
Particular attention has also been paid to the building’s relationship with the public realm. A timber deck of varying width, combined with planting, guides movement and creates places to pause around the building, while metal canopies at ground and roof level provide shaded gathering spaces overlooking the sea and the city.
Sustainability is embedded in the design itself, with interventions aimed at improving natural light, ventilation and thermal comfort while reducing overheating. Photovoltaic screens, aluminium louvres, low-solar-factor glazing and operable roof elements all contributed to the building achieving LEED Gold certification.
For Maria Deda, founder of Deda & Architects, the significance of the project extends well beyond the restoration itself. “This project is particularly important to us, not only because of its scale and the complexity of its delivery, but also because of its connection to the city where our practice was founded,” she says. “The building forms part of the gradual transformation of the Port of Thessaloniki, a former industrial zone that is being reimagined and is once again taking an active role in the life of the city.”
Perhaps the most telling image of that transformation is, as she puts it, “seeing the building welcome you back, renewed. A familiar part of the city that, through its reuse, has been given a new life and a new role within the contemporary urban landscape.”
