Manhattan Projects New York City, also known as MPNYC, is transforming a former storage and workshop building on Polydefkous Street in Piraeus, Greece, into a combined office, showroom, and gallery. The new space is set to open in October 2026 with a photography exhibition, adding another cultural destination near the firm’s nearby Castor Place project.
The building has taken on multiple identities over time, starting as a port-serving storage facility, then shifting into subdivided cargo units, and later repair workshops. Those workshop years brought major structural changes, including concrete mezzanines, columns, and floor slabs inserted into the tall interior. Later fit-outs added suspended ceilings, showroom elements, and a series of rooms used by a Middle Eastern film-production company.
MPNYC describes the renovated interior as a “slider,” with rooms that can change function as needed. A kitchen is designed to support workshop and model-making use, and it can also operate as a pop-up restaurant or cafe. Meeting rooms can shift into gallery space, project rooms, or workshops, supporting the goal of a real-world place for exchange across art, craft, and design.
From a masonry and restoration standpoint, the work is rooted in subtraction. The design team removed layers that hid the older fabric, reopened original doorways to bring daylight deeper into the building, and installed minimal steel pivot doors in restored openings. Timber shutters found inside the walls were restored and put back into service.
Reclaimed brick is being reused for small partitions, thresholds, and window sills, while existing masonry and concrete structures are cleaned and left exposed. Overhead, removing suspended ceilings reveals an approximately 150-year-old fir roof. For mason contractors, this kind of approach changes the finish conversation. When brick, stone, and concrete are the final surfaces, the work lives or dies on the condition of what gets revealed and the care taken in what gets saved.
Read the full, original article from Designboom here.