Designing a vacation house for one person, on a plot of land found on a dry and very steep sloping site made of soil, shrubs and rocks washed into the sea in the west part of the sea coast on the island of Kea, was the brief for this private commission.
Location-topography and building legislation has been the initial challenge to resolve, and the objective was to turn this house into an object grounded yet discreet on this bare and overwhelming solemn topography.
The location of the house and the idea of having one strip like view of the house from the sea, positioned it on a platform veranda concrete plane so that the natural landscape would remain untouched and as a an alternative substitute of the conventional high retaining wall which would increase the overall height of the built volume.
The plan connects two separate bedrooms with wc/shower with the main living space open plan kitchen and sitting room, with alternate outdoor shaded areas back and front. Two extra sleeping mezzanine boxes are set on the transitional space between sleeping area and living room.
On the back there is a separate volume built in the steep rock with one main fasade as facility room. A steep driveway leads to the house.
The site is left untouched from the house below down to the sea, so that the intervention is proposed as a house insert on the natural steep landscape.
From the top the view is the plan, from the sea the view is the west elevation.
Vacation House
a 150 sq. m vacation house for one person
private commission 2001-2
Client: Private
Location: Vroskopos / island of Kea / Cycladic islands
Project Team Architect: Eleni Kostika
Assistant architect: Christina Fractopoulou
Civil Engineer: Yiannis Tsopanakis – Ypsilon
Mechanical Engineer: Nikolas Nakos & PartnersTopography
Site-Topography: Grigoris Roubos