The post 100% Hotel Show was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The post 100% Hotel Show in Crete was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The post Milka Hotel was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The seven luxury suites are built in an 8-acre property, near Preveza, Greece. Their design features sophisticated simplicity and minimalist architecture, in harmony with the environment. Each room comprises two levels: The lowest, on the same level with the swimming pool, accommodates the lounge, with uninterrupted views of the sea, and nature. The interior blends a fusion of Scandinavian design with artisanal Greek furniture. The bedroom and bathroom floors are clad in terrazzo. The walls are plastered with handmade facing, the outdoor courtyards feature pressed cement, and the spa walls are clad in venetian stucco. Solid teak, suar, and iroko wood dominate the pergolas, the outdoor furniture, and the outdoor lounge surfaces, between the room and the swimming pool. The suites are surrounded by a Mediterranean garden lush in rosemary and lavender, and the roofs are planted to achieve passive energy saving. 

Block722

Spyros Hound Photography

262 | November 2021

The post Meraviglia Slow Living was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

This is the first time that a five-star hotel chooses to cater to the demanding, millennial audience, in such a straightforward manner. Onoma Hotel in Thessaloniki is a technologically flexible hotel, in tune with the contemporary traveler: Millennials control their lives through their smartphones and they are used to everything adapting to their personal interests. The technologically flexible hotel does the same and has “personalised smart staying” as its main concept.

An Original Hospitality Concept.

Through a fresh, pioneering hospitality concept relying on the digital experience, the hotel celebrates contemporary design and new hotel branding trends, to create a new experience of interaction with the visitor. Its architecture is signed by Makridis Associates (interior) and Kouloukouris Associates (exterior); the overall concept bears the mark of Hyper Tria creative agency. 

Hotel Design for the Instagram Generation

Onoma Hotel is dotted with “instagrammable” spots, neon signs, and street art, inviting the visitors to share on their social feed. The entrance is marked by two L-shaped LED screens, featuring videos and images. The hidden gem of the building is the illusion basketball court, designed in anamorphic street art style. Entering the lobby, guests are confronted with the Seeker – an iconic statue, representative of the contemporary traveler seeking new experiences, a photo booth for instant social feed uploads, and a vertical garden at the secret backyard.

The rooms are transformed into personalized experience stage sets. The visitor can upgrade to different concepts, turning the room into an experience area for Gaming, Wine Tasting, Street Basketball, Rock Music Bands. The digital interface includes smartphone lock-unlock, ambience control through tablet, and wireless charging.

The Importance of Branding in Hotel Design

To create the Onoma Hotel, Hyper Tria worked on many levels. Its main assignments were: Hotel concept, naming, brand strategy, logo & visual identity, brand manual, guest experiences, hotel guest app design, gamification design, facilities naming and logos, menus design, environmental branding, signage, merchandise design, and website design and development. All was developed through the hyper branding algorithmic concept. 

For its innovative branding strategy, Hyper Tria has been awarded with:

• 2021 Tourism Awards SILVER – Facilities & Innovation
• 2021 Tourism Awards SILVER – Souvenirs

Makridis Associates

Kouloukouris Associates

Hyper Tria

Νίκος Βαβδινουδης

The post Onoma Hotel in Thessaloniki was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Incorporated with harmony and discretion at the ground floor of a classical luxury hotel in Chania, Crete, the cellar invites the guests to discover it, with the minimal but interesting lines and the dark shaded glass facade. With more than 200 of the best Greek wine labels, it manifests how a space can functionally preserve and protect, yet aesthetically highlight itself and its content.

The space of 30 m² prior to the reconstruction, used to facilitate basic management offices divided by a plasterboard wall. The complete regeneration was mandatory not only for maximum organizing efficiency but also due to the thermal and humidity specifications that wine preservation demands. This is the reason that the separate wine tasting room was created, divided by glass, in order to achieve visual continuity, but at the same time secure higher temperatures.

The wine bottle’s shape and the initial space inspired the circular concept which encloses the guest with the warmth of wood and encourages wandering around the central table. The design idea is completed with the oak carved ceiling, in which the light is resembling the otherworldly atmosphere inside Rome’s Pantheon. This mystical quality is enhanced by the warm earthy colors, the different textures, the natural materials, and the low hidden lighting which highlights the product and gives the process of choosing an important significance.

The wine tasting room, has a more contemporary and minimal character and it constitutes the spatial transition from the exterior of the hotel to the core of the cellar. Also here, the space is developed around the table, which is created by prolonging one of the shelves of the wall. The linear lights are giving the rhythm, the glass showcases indicate the precious value and the wine is on stage.

Georgina Andrei

South Space for Photography

The post Wine Cellar at Minoa Palace was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

At a dead-end of Sarri Street in Athens, the old, two-story foundry, built in 1930, is radically remodeled to house a boutique hotel with twelve independent suites.

From the entrance of the building to the planted roof, elements of Athenian history, the industrial character of Psirri district, the Greek landscape and materiality (marble, terrazzo, and stone) are brought together in a contemporary architectural design.

The building’s total area of 860m² is distributed in five levels. The basement accommodates all service areas, and the ground floor houses the reception. The hotel’s 12 apartments occupy the other three floors, and the terrace is planted with Greek varieties, providing a quiet, relaxing space looking over the city’s historical center.

The guiding principle during the design process was respect for the structural shell of the property, for its singular volumetric character, as well as provision for integrating key features of its architectural identity into its newest incarnation.

The building was structurally reinforced to withstand the weight of the planted roof, and its new use as a boutique hotel. Vertically arranged industrial windows were replaced with new, iron frames of the same appearance, bearing double glazing. Concurrently, all stone walls of the property were restored and highlighted.

Two recent additions to the building, informal structures dating from the 1990ies, were incorporated in the design as green cubes-parasites, underscored with visibly standing-out materials: their free-standing platforms were framed in Greek plants (horizontally and vertically), and the new rectangular openings, with cor-ten steel details and aluminum frames, channel the view to selected vanishing points.

Efi Malandraki,

Miltiadis Portokalis

The post The Foundry was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The hotel is located on the northwestern part of the traditional settlement of Oia, Santorini, beneath the limits of the old medieval castle, Castelli, looking over the sea, Thirasia island and the world-famous Santorini sunset. Access to the building is provided from a stepped lane connecting Castelli to Ammoudi, its old harbor.

The building, a 19th-century two-story house with an old bread oven, a mule barn, small storage rooms, and a rainwater tank on the ground level, and all main rooms on the first floor, was in a state of ruin, structurally perilous with a derelict shell.

After thorough analysis of the old building, of its morphology and ornaments, the architectural restoration aimed to strictly preserve its initial appearance and interior space, without any compromises on its character or integration into the volcanic landscape and traditional settlement.

In the framework of its intended use as a hotel, a few minor modifications were undertaken in the outdoor spaces of the building: Renovation saw the construction of small water surfaces-swimming pools, sitting areas and partitions, and the differentiation of the two external stairs and interior distribution.

The hotel comprises three rooms on the ground level and two more on the first floor, each with its independent access courtyard and integrated lounge, bedroom, vestiary, and bathroom. The terrace accommodates a shared sitting area for patrons, with uninterrupted views of the caldera.

The white plasticity of the grotto rooms on the former ground level is complete with new, bespoke furniture. As a counterpoint, the lines and geometries of the old house interior are accentuated and highlighted, with the addition of new, bespoke colorful wooden furniture and a new oak floor, in the framework of a minimal island-neoclassical style. The surfaces of the baths and the mezzanine are faced with traditional pressed cement.

Local stone and heat-insulating bricks were used as wall infill. Ground-retaining walls in the landscaping were carried out in reinforced concrete and stone, with the necessary use of sprayed concrete on the interior and exterior surfaces of the building for structural reinforcement and water insulation.

The use of local volcanic rock on the retaining walls, brown-gray plaster on the facades and exterior floors, and grey wooden frames, contribute to the smooth integration of the building to its surroundings by means of its materiality, colors, and textures.

Olives, a palm tree at the entrance of the compound, lavender, thyme, and wind-resistant shrubs complete the building’s integration into its singular environment.

Kapsimalis Architects

The post Old Castle Oia was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The hotel was created in a renovated 1930ies building that used to contain a printshop, retail and warehouses. The new materiality of the shell, combined with its rhythmical surfaces, allude to the history of the building, and to its urban setting. Black metal sheets refer to its former use as a printshop, and to the cottage industry typical of the historical center of Athens. Wood surfaces compose rhythmical solids and voids, as negative space in-between printed words. At the indoor atrium, room openings are integrated in vertical metal strips as pointers to the sky, attracting the visitors’ gaze to the glass roof. On the facades, black metal sheets frame the windows as architectural edges revealing the scale of the rooms. From the reception, a gallery leads to the atrium, which is the core of the compound, and rooms are arranged in surrounding wings. The terrace is equipped with a restaurant, with a view to the Acropolis.

PEOPLE

The post Best of 2020: The Editor was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The hotel is placed on the edge of the traditional settlement of Ia, at a steep slope with uninterrupted views towards the sea and the volcano. The program involved the restoration of existing buildings, with the addition of new grotto rooms and shared spaces.

The complex unfolds on six levels. The project faithfully restores the existing buildings, in the spirit of a contemporary, discreet interpretation of the old settlement’s cubist morphology, in line with the sculptural terrain.

The shape of the new grotto houses retains the structure, geometry, materiality, and white color of vernacular buildings. However, their layout and openings turn, to frame the sea view. The facades follow the contours of the natural terrain as jagged lines materializing in folded retaining walls, gently integrated into the landscape.

The formal outcome is characterized by its intensely dynamic character, where the downward movement of the central exterior flight of steps appears as a crack in the “body” of the building.

Kapsimalis Architects

The post Best of 2020: The Saint was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The Wooden Cave is a project by Tenon Architecture, that was designed and built by the architects Apostolos Mitropoulos and Thanos Zervos at the Hyades Mountain Resort in Trikala Korinthias, Greece, and was completed in 2020. The project entails the complete renovation of an existing space of the resort, intended for commercial use, with the construction of a curved wooden structure within it.

The composition is based on the idea of dividing the layout into two zones: the main room, which is made up of a continuous curved wooden structure, and the secondary spaces, which are oriented towards the view and covered in dark stone. This division intends to create a clear distinction between the hard, “protective” shell and the curved, “inviting” interior, reminiscent of the form of a cave that has been used as a refuge and a haven throughout human existence. The guestroom of the inner zone includes two sleeping areas integrated within the curved structure as well as an open-plan kitchen. The outer zone includes two secondary rooms:  a sitting area with a fireplace and the bathroom of the main guestroom.

Materiality was of paramount importance in the spatial expression of this project, with most of its elements being wooden and the outer spaces made from stone sourced from the local area. The curved structure is made of spruce raw timber, while the rest of the features (kitchen, cupboards, floor, etc.) are of knotless pine plywood. All the wooden structures were constructed at an offset from the concrete shell, which allows for airflow behind the wood. Circulating air between the wooden elements and the concrete aims to protect the structure and passively regulate the room’s humidity and temperature, utilizing wood’s natural buffering abilities. The passive system of controlling the environmental conditions, was of vital importance for the project, as the area, being on a high altitude, is characterized by significant temperature fluctuations throughout the year.

The construction of the project was carried out by Tenon’s team on-site. The curved structure consists of 1.112 different curved wooden pieces. The drawings of each piece were produced algorithmically and transferred on-site, where the pieces were processed manually and converted into 55 larger modules. Each of the modules was then hand-carved and shaped before the final assembly of the structure. The absence of any digital fabrication methods in the construction resulted in the adoption of a more sculptural approach towards the final form. This kind of highly customized sculptural process also meant that no carpenters, workers, or other technicians were employed, and every part of the structure was constructed and assembled by the two members of the team.

Finally, one of the most challenging parts of this work, was the translation of the algorithmic drawings into practical instructions for hand-working and sculpting the wood on-site. The final structure is, therefore, a unique amalgamation of algorithmic logic and hands-on craftsmanship.

Tenon Architecture

Spyros Hound Photography

The post The Wooden Cave was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

San Miguel de Allende is one of Mexico’s premier tourist sites, with wine activity throughout the region that has enabled significant tourism and economic growth. In recent years, vineyards offering tastings and tours, as well as the region’s breathtaking architecture, have proven to be a popular combination. It is within that context that ASP was presented with the opportunity to engage in a project to develop a multipurpose complex in a field featuring a small hill.

The project consists of a master plan that is divided into private estates of 6,000 to 8,000 m², as well as 87 hectares of vineyards and buildings destined for public recreation and relaxation. Public areas include a boutique hotel, a spa, a clubhouse, a restaurant, an equestrian club, and multiple sports courts.

The intent of the design was to develop an aesthetic to complement, rather than compete with, existing elements. ASP achieved that vision by integrating each volume into the landscape while using strategically-located horizontal concrete and stone platforms to prevent obstructed views from within each space. The materials used, including stone, wood, earth, gravel, and pavers, serve as unifying elements due to their chromatic and neutral finishes, as well as their local origins.

The complex also features an orchard that supplies some of the restaurant’s fresh ingredients. The vineyards are irrigated courtesy of a drip irrigation system, supplied by two existing wells. As part of the boutique hotel, an artificial lake was designed to generate microclimates and microenvironments that favor the landscape.

ASP Arquitectura Sergio Portillo

The post Vineyard “El Pedregal” was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The 15-unit resort housing compound is in Crete, located at Ayia Pelagia. The architectural approach considered the specific features of the site, the natural slope, the view and orientation as well as functional requirements, such as the smooth integration of the units and the potential for future expansions.

Sparse volumes are composed to form the complex. The tourist residences, 40m² each, are arranged in a way that creates an enclosed social space with two swimming pools and a bar; a second space for outdoor dining is created on the terraces of the southernmost houses, providing unobstructed views.

The design of the outdoor spaces features prominently; the resulting courtyard protects the privacy of the residents but also allows immediate contact with the exterior.

In the north façade, the main entrance is highlighted in-between two monolithic volumes, allowing discreet glances to the interior courtyard.

The material palette, including natural stone, wood, metal and glass, reinforces the integration of the whole and illustrates the measured design, coexisting with surprise elements.

The architecture of the compound responds to the needs and desires of the owners, expressing their personality, and further illustrates the signature design of the architect, in a clear space that invites the senses.

Lefteris Tsikandilakis + Architects

Pantelis Mathioudakis

The post Seascape Luxury Resort was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The post Pavilion Competition was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.