A House Between the Rocks
Volax is perhaps the most “authentic” location in Tinos: strikingly special and distinct, in a way that makes it unique in the Cyclades – or even the world.
So, designing a building as a continuation or a complementary part of the overall grand picture of Volax is a real challenge.
Respecting this landscape, we designed 3 separate volumes around a central patio. These volumes house the main functions of the residence, and differ in height, dimensions, and materials. Their principal feature is that no organised design – site concept was followed for their construction but instead, each part has been freely set in the space, in an almost anarchic way, as if it had fallen from the sky and simply stayed there. In other words, exactly as happened with the volcanic spherical rocks of Volax.
Equally typical is the northern side of the residence where we create a “limit”, an artificial protection of the space from the north wind, a volume of exposed, unpainted concrete. The selection of this materiality makes the house seem also like a rock while in time, when the colourful concrete aggregates emerge at the surface, it will be totally integrated with the landscape. On the other hand, the selection of its shape, an oblong rectangle, manages to give prominence to the rocks “underlying” it, enhancing their sphericity, setting them in direct “confrontation” with its own linearity. In the internal part, the hard envelope “breaks” and becomes “transparent”, allowing the interior to become one with the exterior part.
In this way, the limitations of the “inside” and the “outside” become less and less apparent, while the interior space extends to the rock cluster at the back of the plot, towards the village.
