‘How can we create a house on a rooftop whilst maintaining the site’s rooftop feel?’ wondered Athens and Stockholm based architects Maria Papafigou and Johan Annerhed, when their studio, OOAK, was invited to design a new residential project on the relatively remote Greek island of Karpathos.
The firm, which had completed a striking house in Karpathos in 2019, was already familiar with the local geography and the region’s picturesque architecture, and sought to combine that with their own contemporary aesthetic, while creating a building that felt new, but also ‘of its place’. Bringing a new set of challenges, this latest commission was in a completely different setting than their earliest work (a concrete holiday home on Afiarti beach), set in the village of Diafani in the island’s north.
The site was key to the design concept. The lot was situated partially on the rooftop of an existing building, in line with the island’s signature stepped villages and practice of shared roofs and terraces. ‘So our primary design goal was to maintain the outdoor rooftop feeling of the site, while creating a house around it,’ say the architects.
In order to create some privacy for the owners, while keeping the space open to the outdoors, the team designed a perimeter wall, embracing the main living spaces; these are composed of an open plan sitting, kitchen and dinning area, which spills out to a generous terrace with a sun deck and swimming pool. A large, 13.8m opening connects effortlessly the two parts, inside and outside. Above this, an enclosed volume, which references the local vernacular architecture in its design (in particular the window shutters and metal work), contains the more private spaces.
While the views are central to the design, anchoring it in its place through carefully framed vistas towards the sea and the surrounding buildings, the architects worked with a variety of textures and colours in the interiors, to ‘accentuate and enrich this experience’, they explain. As a result, the spaces inside feel modern, but also distinctly welcoming and tactile, making this holiday home an ideal place to sit back and unwind. §
