An existing holiday home originally built in 1986 in Andros Island, was refurbished to modernize its appearance, improve its functional organization, and optimize the views towards the sea. The landscape design of the garden area and the incorporation of a swimming pool were also in the brief.

Layout design

The plot on which the house stands has an apparent terrain height differentiation of 2.00m and the house is developed on two above-ground levels and a semi-basement. The ground level includes the living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms; the first floor accommodates one bedroom, and the semi-basement contains a guest room.

Façade design and fenestration

The house location and the unobstructed view to the sea determined the arrangement and the size of the fenestration on the facades, designed in a way to allow the exceptional qualities of the scenery to enter the house, in a controlled manner through selected frames.

Landscaping

The surrounding area, already formed on two levels, was revamped, the external stairs were reconstructed, and the lower level was landscaped into a pool area and a garden.

The post Blue Frames Summer House was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

In a suburban settlement by the sea, Geoponika, in Nea Kallikratia, Halkidiki, a holiday house of 75m² was built on a corner site of 500m². The building was designed according to the privacy needs of a family of three, combined with the hosting of friends with space for common holiday activities.

As a main idea for the design, the possibility of symbiosis was explored, considering the examples of collective holiday facilities in Greece (camps, motels, organized camping etc). The building is developed on the ground level, while the main spaces are placed in a linear layout. The bedrooms, three compact dwellings, are alternated with the two common areas–permeable spaces: the living room, and the patio. The patio, inside the building volume, between the main house and the guest house, enhances the autonomy of the tenants and functions as a meeting point. The house faces south and its location on the plot ensures a large outdoor courtyard, motivating outdoor living.

The design and selection of materials was based on the culture of “frugal innovation”, focused on serving the basic functions and aims to improve the sustainability of the building. At the same time, minimizing the use of processed materials that increase the required financial resources and environmental footprint, significantly reduces the cost of ownership without diminishing the spatial experience. At the Bungalow House, the exposed concrete of the large horizontal slab-roof, the fence, and the spruce wood boards used for the shutters, illustrate the practice of simple use of materials.

FINA Office

FINA Office

253 | December 2020

The post Vacation Home Design in Halkidiki was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The building is part of a compound of small, three-story vacation houses, with a small environmental footprint, at an altitude of 980m on the slopes of Parnassus. The site lies beside a rocky ravine, among fir and chestnut trees. The material palette includes local stone for the building shell, claddings with wood of the area, and metal. The standout element crossing through two levels is a perforated steel surface in a dark grey shade, bearing a geometric pattern. This surface conceals the metal staircase leading from the living room to the mezzanine, without hindering natural light. Perforations bring more light to a second, wooden staircase leading to the bedrooms, bathroom, and sauna in the basement. Dark metal comes into contrast with the smooth, white walls, and the roof of chestnut beams in their natural color. The project features a contemporary sensibility, in conversation with its surrounding landscape.

Maria Kardami Design Studio

Παναγιώτης Βουμβάκης

261 | October 2021

The post Vacation House in Arachova was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The house is built on an inclined property, facing Paros Island. The project involves modifications in an existing three-story structure purposed to accommodate two independent houses, with only the loadbearing structure realized. Modifications include the complete redesign of the interiors and facades, as well as landscaping. The project develops on three levels, including six bedrooms, and guesthouses. It is a composition of white, cubic volumes and walls, projected upon the rocky, arid hill slope, surrounded by drystone retaining walls which define courtyards according to the ground inclination and the programmatic units. Great consideration was given to detailing, in order to create a typology of distinctive solutions, consistent with the design objectives at large. Stone, metal, white plaster, and pressed cement facing are composed to create a spacious, relaxed, calm environment, celebrating the senses in a singular location on Naxos Island.

Ariadni Vozani

Elias Chandelis

258 | June 2021

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

“kéras [Greek: κέρας]: the horn, hard permanent outgrowth found in pairs on the heads of certain mammals”.

Modern Architecture Referencing History

One of the main inspirations for this project is the «Horns of Consecration», a symbol of Minoan civilization. This geometry is translated in several design elements of the house.

Building Location

The plot is located 2,6km west of Agia Galini village, in the southern coast of Rethymno, Crete. The plot offers unobstructed views to the southern Cretan Sea, as well as to the small, uninhabited Paximadia islands. The building is positioned following the topography lines of the plot, where it drops to the sea. This allows for maximum views throughout the house.

Layout Design and Volumetric Arrangement

The house is formed by two main volumes, one housing the living areas (kitchen, dining, lounge, spa, exterior seating, and dining) and the other housing three en-suite bedrooms as well as the master suite.

The two volumes forming the house are curved, emulating the geometry of the symbol that inspired the design, the Minoan “horns of consecration”. Two curved exposed concrete slabs are placed above, sheltering both indoor and outdoor living spaces, seamlessly connected to one another.

The entrance to the house is located at the north side of the plot. A covered space will be created above the entrance door, using a floating slab resting on a pillar, inspired by the Minoan horns. The entrance to the house will reveal unobstructed views to the sea and the Paximadia islands through a large glass panel.

Tzagkarakis + associates

Tzagkarakis + associates

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

This modest summer home redefines vacationing in an island where the presence of the ship-building industry dominates contemporary imagination as a place of production and labor. Lack of any remarkable features and a palpable sense of ambiguity in the surrounding community, street, and in the plot itself, turn the house inwards. This inward-looking condition anchors the house around an olive tree and a well, creating courtyards that take advantage of the micro-climate and contain the outdoors within. In contrast to most of the island’s year-round residences, which tend to exhibit a makeshift, “prosthetic” approach to spatial expansion through the chronic accumulation of built add-ons, the new summer house is conceived as a form of “subtraction” from a single material volume containing sculptural voids.

Exterior walls give the appearance of a monolithic volume, concealing the existence of a large interior courtyard at the center. A single, narrow passage leads visitors directly from the front yard to the courtyard, while a secondary, twin passage leads from the courtyard to the pool garden at the opposite end of the plot. Within the central courtyard, smaller glass volumes positioned around the olive tree provide the main living spaces. These are lined with full height sliding glass doors that merge indoor and outdoor space while they control circulation from one end of the courtyard to the other. Maximum flexibility of movement is provided when all sliding glass doors are open, including the front and back gates of the house, creating a single, uninterrupted chain of outdoor spaces that extends the entire length of the site, as if splitting the house into two.

The Salamis project is included in the nominations for the European Union Prize of Contemporary Architecture, Mies van der Rohe Award 2022.

AREA

Yiorgis Yerolymbos

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

The project comprises two adjacent vacation houses on the northeastern edge of Paros island, in Santa Maria.

During the last years, Paros has been one of the most rapidly developing Cycladic islands, being a popular destination in the domestic and international tourist flows. Beside the increase in visitors’ volume, services have been upgraded and demand has become more selective, and this has had an impact on the programmatic requirements of vacation houses.

On the one hand, users seek relaxation and breaking away from their urban lifestyles; on the other, they seek the same amenities that they enjoy during the rest of the year. The project had to confront two challenges: devising a place-specific solution and finding a balance between tradition and modernity.

Both houses, located at the last property north of Santa Maria, bordering the Natura area of natural preservation, face east with uninterrupted views to Naxos (east) and Delos (north).

This orientation, beside the view and the ground morphology, results from the need to protect the residents from the strong summer wind from the north, and from the view of neighboring buildings on the south.

This protection is enhanced with the use of architectural elements such as stone walls, shades, and pergolas, that create hospitable nooks.

In the building’s aesthetics, the pair of tradition and modernity finds a balance that is redefined each time, according to the individual features of each building and user.

In this case, one aspect of the project involves the large scale, increased technical requirements, the need for high-level services and living, paired with the intention for clear lines and spaces, consistent with the teachings of the modern movement.

On the other side lies the restrained Cycladic architecture, small scale, the simplicity of island living and the rough feel of traditional materials. The balance between all these elements became the main driving force in the architecture of both houses: Technology combined with tradition, comfort with simplicity, clarity and texture, contemporary and vernacular.

ISV Architects

The post Two vacation houses in Santa Maria was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Sitting on the ridge of the hill of Aleomandra in Mykonos yet almost entirely hidden from view, the property looks straight out to sea and the sunset over the neighboring island of Delos.

A 6-bedroom holiday house built for a young, dynamic couple to enjoy with their family and friends, it celebrates its spectacular view from a grounded viewpoint blended into a sensitively landscaped, stone-walled garden that screens it from the road behind.

The house is built upon the idea of slow, laid-back summer living, and encourages mindful connection with family, friends and the freedom to exist peacefully in nature. Form follows emotion rather than function, as every space becomes another opportunity for rest, reflection and exploration.

To create a house that would allow guests to enjoy being outside throughout the day, the architects needed to filter the overwhelming intensity of the climate by providing shade and protection from the elements. Although the house needed to accommodate a large number of guests, it does not dominate the landscape with oversized volumes. Inspired by the humble complexity of the traditional island vernacular, the architecture was reduced to two small traditionally whitewashed volumes and a third one made of stone dug from the site, built around a large courtyard living area which is covered by an expansive but lightweight chestnut pergola. This courtyard becomes the focal point of the house, seamlessly connected to the living room and kitchen volumes and looking over the pool and gardens beyond. Beneath the pool garden are the private bedrooms, separated for privacy and quietly enjoying the uninterrupted view over the lower garden to the sea. Their separation further reduces the overall impact of the house and cleanly divides social and private space.

Key to the character of the house is the palette of traditional materials such as lime-wash, stone and wood that have been applied and engineered with contemporary techniques to create an un-nostalgic architecture that bridges heritage and locality with contemporary life. Hand-built stone walls are sharply confident; traditionally rendered, round-edged volumes are perfectly flat and smooth. The customary chestnut pergola has been engineered to increase its structural integrity, to form a glue-lam beam lattice that sits lightly on the white volumes, shading and protecting the extensive courtyard beneath.

The simple white volumes, straight stone walls and light pergola planes sit comfortably in the Cycladic landscape and the efficiency of their layout, centred around the courtyard living space, streamlines daily life. Villa Mandra is informed by humble Cycladic tradition, enriched by natural materiality and inspired by contemporary summer living.

K-Studio

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