Ad-Tech
Limassol |Cyprus
The Propeller Ads project began with the transformation of an existing, largely unused building in the city of Limassol into the new working environment of an international digital media company. Previously occupied by a supermarket and offices of the Cyprus Post, the building carried within it the spatial characteristics of its former uses: a large structural footprint, generous floor plates and a fragmented relationship between its different levels. Propeller Ads operates within the field of digital advertising, bringing together a large number of employees, departments and parallel activities. The scale and diversity of its programme therefore demanded more than the conventional organisation of an office. The project had to accommodate concentrated individual work, collective production, meetings and informal interaction, while allowing the building to remain flexible enough to respond to the constantly evolving nature of the company.
Our involvement initially began through the redesign of the building's façade. Gradually, however, the commission developed into a broader investigation of how the existing structure could acquire an entirely new architectural identity. The building is organised across several levels, including underground parking, a ground floor, a mezzanine and two upper floors. Rather than treating this existing condition as a limitation, the design sought to work with its scale and structural logic, introducing a new spatial system capable of connecting its different parts.
The first architectural gesture was directed towards the building's relationship with the city. The new envelope was conceived not simply as a façade, but as an intermediate layer between interior and exterior. A repetitive composition of planar elements generates an apparently systematic yet deliberately asymmetric grid. Selected elements are removed from this field, producing a sequence of voids that allow natural light, ventilation and framed views to penetrate the building. The result is a condition of controlled permeability: simultaneously open and introverted. The façade conceals and reveals, allowing the building to maintain a degree of privacy while remaining connected to its surroundings. Its incomplete pattern resembles an unresolved puzzle—a surface whose absences become as significant as its solid elements. At the same time, the new envelope allowed a series of technical and morphological inconsistencies of the existing building to be absorbed into a more coherent, almost monolithic architectural expression.
This idea of the filter continues internally. Lightweight metal frameworks, shelving systems, planting and partial enclosures establish boundaries without completely dividing space. The characteristic terracotta-red structure becomes a recurring spatial device: at times a partition, at others storage, infrastructure, background or simply a line travelling through the building. Greenery occupies the voids within this framework, softening the industrial character of the exposed services and introducing another layer of depth and inhabitation.
The existing ceiling is largely left exposed. Mechanical installations, ducts, cable trays and structural elements remain visible and become part of the architectural language rather than elements to be concealed. Against this raw infrastructural background, precise linear lighting, neutral work surfaces and the warm terracotta framework establish a deliberate contrast between the technical and the tactile.
The working environment is organised as a landscape rather than a collection of isolated rooms. Open workstations coexist with meeting spaces, shared desks and more informal territories. Circulation becomes part of this landscape, while the mezzanine establishes visual connections across the larger volume. Spaces for relaxation and gathering—including a stepped informal amphitheatre—extend the idea of the workplace beyond the desk, encouraging moments of pause, exchange and collective activity.
On the western edge of the building, a new linear wall negotiates the difference in level between the building and the adjacent parking area. Beyond its practical role, the intervention defines a protected planted patio: an exterior room that introduces vegetation, shade and a quieter atmosphere into the daily experience of the workplace. Ultimately, the project does not attempt to erase the building's previous identity. Instead, it works through addition, subtraction and filtering, allowing the existing structure and the new intervention to coexist. Architecture becomes a system of layers—solid and void, industrial and domestic, exposed and concealed—through which an obsolete commercial building is reinterpreted as a contemporary, adaptable workplace.
