Residence in Paros

Landscape tapestry

The property, in the east part of the island, is facing Naxos. The terrain is steep, containing an olive grove and dry-stone earth retaining walls looking like threads on the ground.

Landscape integration

The concept for the new building is to weave into the existing landscape. The house extends meandering in-between the olive trees and daily life is organized around three of them, that are assigned special importance. The many thresholds of the house correspond to individual courtyards, on different levels; those are retained by new dry-stone walls, emulating the existing ones.

The curved, threadlike system of the old walls becomes striated at the area of intervention. Rectangular courtyards, becoming stages for everyday life, compose a patchwork fabric woven into the landscape. This way, the house becomes a canvas highlighting nature.

Spatial organization

The compound is comprised of three distinct volumes: The main house, with the kitchen, the living room and three master bedrooms, escalates towards the south; a second volume with a guest room and a third one with a mezzanine for the family’s children and their friends, turn towards the east. At their junction, an open-air cooking area under a pergola becomes the core of the house.

Material Palette

The material and color palette of the outdoor spaces integrates the house into the natural landscape of the island. Hard floor surfaces are faced with grey pressed cement, in the same tonality as the frames and shutters of the openings breaking the whiteness of the walls. The impression is complemented with wooden pergolas in their natural tone and dry-stone walls.

The exact same palette is repeated in the interior, where the fair-faced concrete ceiling and the grey cement flooring frame the white vertical surfaces in-between. Case and mobile furniture feature wooden surfaces in a natural tone, highlighted by light or dark blue details on fabric upholstery or ornamental tiles.

Lighting Design & Sustainability

Lighting is either built into the ceiling or indirect, from the low part of the walls. The house is bioclimatic. Rainwater from the terraces is collected, filtered and reused, while all spaces benefit from natural cross-ventilation, creating a pleasant cooling effect during the summer months.