Residence for Musicians / GEM Architects

Architects: GEM Architects
Location: Naousa, Greece
Architects In Charge: Petros Bazos, Vicky Emmanouilidou, Despina Gounaropoulou
Area: 160.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Costas Vergas

Other Participants : Mei Agelaki, Vicky Gavala, Elena Emmanouilidi, Yiannis Bazos, Christos Smyrnis, Dimitris Grigoriadis

Text description provided by the architects. This summer house of 160 m2 is situated in a quiet and elegant neighborhood in the town of Naousa, at the island of Paros. It’s a house for a family of musicians. The house’s white volumes are structural and remain simple and cubic. They follow the voids and masses of the neighboring buildings, proliferating from the views to the sea and assimilated to the context. They evolve around the swimming pool and the interior “protected” courtyard, the microcosm of the house. Exterior space flows like a spiral from the ground floor courtyard to the top terrace, which has a magnificent view to the sea and the town of Naousa. Next to the pool, the music studio, serves also as a guest room. Materials used are simple and minimalist: concrete floors and roofs, dark grey metal frames, bright white Cycladic walls. The house follows the principles of bioclimatic design. Thermal insulation on the roofs and a new technology thermal insulation system for the walls, protect the interior space from the extreme weather conditions created by the strong Northern winds in this part of the island. The house works in a twofold manner with its main facade on the street becoming a cinema screen during the night where the wind creates a mute choreography of the moving shadows of the plants projected, a silent invitation for music to enter the scene. The house has won the award for best completed project within the year 2017 from the Greek Society of Architects SADAS-PEA.

Concrete coatings: Concrete coatings characterize this building. Easy to maintain, these surfaces are built in the house referring to traditional Cycladic architecture where furniture was part of the building’s structure. These surfaces were treated in high contrast in order to exceed their poetic, rural and “primitive” nature.