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Architects: Katerina Tsigarida Architects
- Area: 200 m²
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:Yiorgis Yerolympos
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Manufacturers: Dornbracht, Alessandro Diaz de Santillana, Berker, Domitilla Harding, Katerina Tsigarida Architects, ZEUS + ΔΙΟΝΕ
Text description provided by the architects. The residence is situated in Delphini, a location along a small gulf at the North-West part of the Cycladic island of Syros in the Aegean Sea. The gulf surrounds a small uninhabited island. As the site extends towards the gulf, the small island becomes its focal point, its point of reference.
The property belongs to a Greek five member family which is based in London and has links to the textile and shipping industries of the island.
The residence consists of five independent wedge-shaped volumes divided in two complexes of two larger and three smaller buildings and a later addition of one rectangular volume, the owner’s studio.
Each complex’s functions and large openings are organized around a courtyard and altogether oriented towards the sea. The axes of the intervening courtyards point to the small island. For the external sides of the complexes small, random openings provide privacy.
The two volume group, the first one to be built, is designed as an autonomous residence, containing spaces for all the main activities of the family.
The construction is based on traditional methods.
Local stone is used throughout the volumes in order to enhance the sense of solidity such as the sense that the buildings emerge from the earth.
Natural materials are used, such as timber ceiling beams, local soil mixed with cement for the external floors, untreated internal plastering made of lime and local sand, etc
The construction methods, the choice of natural materials, the gradation of closed, open and semi open spaces in combination with the building’s orientation provide natural ventilation and lighting, shadow and protection from the strong wind, enabling the house to operate in balance with the nature throughout the year.
Syros House could be seen as a descendant of Mitato,Kalivi and Themonia, the basic monolithic stone shapes that were always been on the island, and as the ideal of Primitive Hut , man’s longing to go back to the essential and the continuity through landscape and memory.
