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Greece Athens Attika Latitude/Longitude 37° N 58' 696.0'' 23° E 44' 637.0'' show map studio deca ARCHITECTURE 20 Fokilidou Street Kolonaki 10673 Athens Greece deca@tee.gr Year 2005 Type of Building tourism Client Yes Hotels Area 1400m2 15069 sq feet Cost Publications

Periscope Hotel Kyle Gudsell Description The Periscope is a hotel that has been conceived as an environment for urban surveillance. The building is a container of installations, both interactive mechanisms and works of art, which allow its occupants to experience and scan over the city of Athens at different scales, from a variety of points of view and using diverse media of communication. After 9/11 urban surveillance has become a primary source of information for the agencies that monitor cities in search for security threats. We are constantly been monitored in ways that we are not aware of. The Periscope re-examines urban surveillance as a social phenomenon and offers the opportunity to the public to participate in the process of surveying. The hotel is located in the centre of Athens, in the Kolonaki area, at the foot of the Lycabettus Hill, near numerous tourist attractions. The street is typical of the area, quite narrow, 12 meters wide, with tall buildings on either side, transmitting the sensation of walking inside a canyon and allowing limited frontal direct views. The guests use the installations as aids in order to survey the city and obtain an overview of the urban environment that surrounds them before wandering into the streets. The Periscope is a refurbishment of an existing hotel that was called 'The Athenian Inn'. The building was stripped completely and only the re-enforced concrete structural system was maintained. A new facade and spatial organisation was designed to accommodate both the needs of a contemporary hotel and to mobilize the urban surveillance mechanisms. The hotel has 22 rooms and a bar on the ground floor. The first, second and third floors are occupied by torpedo rooms and the fourth, fifth and sixth floors by suites. All the furniture for the hotel was designed and constructed by the architects. .