Residential / Κατοικίες
Eight Holiday houses, Kea island, Greece
under construction, 2019-2024
Completion of eight houses that remain unfinished, only with the load-bearing body of reinforced concrete, since 1994. The original plan, which proposed two types of traditional houses with arches, was transformed into cubic volumes. The impression of the unfinished, which is for the neighbors (and the whole island) a consolidated memory - impression was also the basic design idea.
The existing concrete structure is "revealed" in places on the facades of the buildings, under the new "skin" of white coating.
New dry stones - "fragments" appear as linear elements and organize the surrounding space, while guiding the visitor through the levels of the houses.
House on a steep slope, Attica, Greece
2020
This is a residence for a couple. The plot has a strong slope and the client had already worked with a soil engineer and a structural engineer for the main "problem" of the plot: the need to build retaining walls on a large part of the plot. The basic idea is to utilize the retaining walls as obvious synthetic elements of the proposal, and not as part of the "problem". Also, the couple asked for a refuge away from urban life, which reinforced the idea of designing a residence that integrates into the natural landscape as a refuge - observatory.
The main retaining wall folds at its end and creates a raised platform - observatory, which at the same time shades the main outdoor living area on the ground floor. A staircase built into the retaining wall leads to the platform. The roof is covered by the limestone rocks of the excavation.
Social housing, Cyprus
2020
One of the biggest problems in collective housing buildings is the loss of human scale and personal identity, especially in large housing complexes. The proposal tries to solve this issue through the design of four different types of independent houses. The four housing types can be adapted to different spatial conditions and orientations, through the use of a "family" of different semi-outdoor spaces and openings. Housing types can still be combined with each other in different ways.
The housing options create combinations with a patio on public pathways, where each residential unit "opens" towards the view and the landscape.
Apartment building for four families, Lebanon
2016
A family with four children over 20 years of age requested the design of an apartment complex for the whole family. The plot is located in the hills surrounding Vyritos in Lebanon, facing west. The view extends to the Mediterranean sea, and the coastline of Lebanon, which is about 10 kilometers from the area. The building regulation mandates the use of stone for 60% of the facade, as well as a pitched roof, in reference to the anonymous folk architecture of Lebanon.
In an attempt to use these limitations to the advantage of compositional resolution, the stone rectangular box, perhaps the most characteristic geometry of anonymous vernacular architecture in Lebanon and Greece, was used as the basic volume of the composition. Another key compositional element of the anonymous folk architecture that was used is the use of the protected inner courtyard. The yard is bordered by the natural slope and a series of white "view cubes", which frame viewing points, while offering shade and privacy to the family.
Apartment building, Athens
2010
The box house, the standard of modern typology "par excellence", (the much abused in Athens, resulting in a "vulgar modern" and the current situation as G.P.Lavvas says) and the protected inner courtyard, a feature one finds often in little houses and neoclassical mansions which still survive today in the Keramikos area from the 20s-30s are the basic principles of the proposal.
Simultaneously, the contractor was willing to sell the entire complex to an investor, which is why the proposal should be as changeable as possible regarding the location and dimensions of the apartments.
So the basic idea was to create 4 basic types of apartments, which can be combined in different ways, like Lego toy bricks.
Also, two blocks were introduced in the lot, who retreat behind the building line, creating an atrium at the core of the design. This gesture also offers natural light and ventilation to all the apartments. Especially for the volume on the back side of the plot, the gesture was necessary, in order to "open up" towards the Acropolis view.
Apartment building, downtown Athens
"Up to 35" competition proposal, 2009
with K.Chrysos
The typical "domus commune" student housing gathers both student units and amenities in one single monoblock building entity.
"Monowok" is the dome split into interconnecting sub-entities. Units and amenities are distributed in a number of satellite buildings, one for each lot, which are simultaneously interconnected, both conceptually and physically.
Each sub-entity is partially self-efficient, having its own basic amenities, like a laundry room in the basement, or bicycle stands on the ground floor.
Still, due to its overall area limitations and programmatic demands, it cannot host an adequate number of amenities that add up to the values of any shared housing project, like a restaurant, a meeting / gallery / event space, a gym, a coffee shop, a grocery store, bookstore or a computer shop.
Thus, we designated one of each of these uses, for the ground floor area of each lot. This creates the “Monowok” student housing network, a walking distance neighborhood student housing with a fusion of amenities uniting them.
Having these amenities within walking distance, one could talk of an urban network campus.
Students share common meeting spaces, like the ground floor amenity space, that will be rent out. What is specifically important is that the diverse amenities spaces are placed in a way that will also serve the existing neighborhood.
Farmhouse, the Peloponnese, Greece
"Segm" competition proposal, 2007
The square and rectangular floor plan, found in the anonymous vernacular architecture of Greece, as well as the pitched roof, are revisited in an effort to design a contemporary farmer's house based on traditional spatial and formal relationships and connections.
The square plan is rotated 45 degrees, separating the private and common spaces. It is then wrapped by a stone wall, that keeps the interior cool, protecting it from the west and south summer sun.
The programmatic areas, the rooms, extend beyond the stone walls, revealing the use of each interior space. The plan rotation allows for a series of cavities and niches for storage in the interior spaces, as traditionally found in the rural farmhouses of Greece.
The roof is reversed, collecting the abundant winter rain water that can be used during the arid Greek summer. It's inclination allows installing PV cells that are 'hidden', in an effort to respect its natural context.
The stone walls extends all the way to the basement, the "Katoi", which has direct access to the outside and can be used for storage but also nestle livestock in winter.
Holiday houses in Evia island, Greece
competition proposal, 2006
Sloping sites with high inclination are difficult to accomodate using conventional systems, developed to work most efficiently in true horizontal and vertical axes. Evidence of this is the abundance of radical cuts and deep retaining walls found in hillside construction, a strategy meant to supress a slope's natural fall line in favor of the direction of the gravity. In our case, such a scenario would be inappropriate, due to its ecological and aesthetic brutality.
To solve this problem, the proposed buildings are treated as artificial landscape, coming to somplement the natural context; the ground floors are half dug within the land and the first floors are undulating surfaces covered with earth from the excavation site.
Axes that run the lots from one side to the other are introduced, in order to follow the contour lines of the ground, thus "hide" as much as possible of the ground floor within the land. Strips of building and landscape create now a rythm on the hill.
Townhouse Renovation, Southern Athens
design / build, 2007
The apartment would be occupied by a young couple and their daughter within a few months. The building was built by the family of the '70s and this apartment had suffered a series of interventions / additions over the years.
The result seemed rather like a"bricolage", a patchwork of spaces without some organization ,creating a series of functional problems.
The owner asked two bedrooms and a children's playroom, and the possibility of hosting relatives and friends for more than a weekend.
The proposal organizes the appartment around a central zone, a common core: the living room (extending up the roof) and the kitchen.
The small room next to the kitchen was turned into a guest house with separate entrance, providing the potential to be used exclusively by the children of the family in the future.