Escape route: React Architects align architecture and environment in Paros
On the island of Paros React Architects have embedded a low-lying house complex with a stone exterior wall into a curved site that slopes down towards the sea. Mindful to preserve the natural beauty of the house’s location in the Agios Ioannis Detis area, a protected stretch of rocky landscape that meets the serene Naoussa Bay, Natasha Deliyianni and Yiorgos Spiridonos, directors of React architects, wanted to leave the smallest possible footprint on the horizon.
The project on the 11,000 sq m site is made up of two houses with white plaster walls, a shared courtyard and swimming pool, all of which is surrounded by a stone exterior wall – enveloping and protecting the inhabited space in what the architects describe as a ‘hug’. The architectural grouping of forms follows the traditional ‘katoikiés’ style of Cycladic architecture, which can also be seen in the plans of monasteries on Paros featuring a church at the centre and satellite buildings all surrounded by an enclosing exterior wall.
Sensitive to the gradual incline of the land, the complex is settled into the natural topography and only the tops of the exterior walls are visible to passersby. The architects chose a stone that was visually similar in colour to the surrounding terrain, and this border is designed so the white walls of the houses can only be seen from the courtyard.
The architecture also works to bring privacy to the relatively exposed site – entry to the house complex is from the highest point of the site, where a pathway descends between two buttressing walls into the heart of the courtyard.
The position of the house in relation to the land, also means that the inhabitants are protected from the strong winds from the north, just another instance of how the React Architects have constructively challenged the symbiotic relationship between the architecture and the environment.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the React Architects website
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Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
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