Architecture: Gem Architects
About Studio
“We owe to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced. We owe it to the worms and the trees that the buildings we cover them with will stand as promises of the highest and most intelligent kinds of happiness.”
Alain de Botton
We are interested in reading about topos, the specific landscape, and nature. We believe in buildings that relate to their environment and emerge from it, creating new structures and new ways of comprehending space. We try through the form and functionality of our buildings to envelop the people living in them with directness, poetics, and optimism.
We attempted to create a modern language based on the vernacular. The rectangular volumes refer to the tradition while at the same time, the spans of openings, the beams as well as the choice of materials refer to modern constructions. Glass rails and wood structures follow this logic.
Colors and materials were where inspired by the surrounding landscape. The olive tree palette dominates. This approach is completed with the overall design of the interiors and custom-made furniture, in an attempt to achieve a holistic statement.
The house unfolds in 3 levels. On the ground floor, the main living room, dining room, and kitchen are situated. The wide folding French windows, create a unity between the interior and the exterior courtyard, all facing the sea.
In this courtyard, southwest orientated unfolds a swimming pool with its long axis vertical to the view plane. Areas well protected from the sun, are created under the pergolas, a lounge sitting area as well as a bbq with a dining table. In the mezzanine, 3 kids’ bedrooms are created, with sleeping areas placed in attics.
On the first floor, the master bedroom creates the main volume of the synthesis. The central position of the bed overlooking the view dominates the interior under the wooden roof. On the lowest level of the site, a stone wall formation is the only sign of the otherwise underground guest’s house.
The house’s garden, about 4 acres, is created on different levels with landscape formations following the natural site inclination. An alternation of herbs and indigenous plants, citrus, fruit, and olive trees, along with a miniature vineyard, participate in an orchestration of nature, using curved stone mantels as paintbrushes-borders in the whole synthesis.
