The Ring House | DECA Architecture

Agía Galíni / Greece / 2016

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162 Love 21,521 Visits Published

The Ring House is located on the southern coast of Crete. The house and its garden are designed to form a temperate microclimate, an oasis within an intensely beautiful but physically demanding environment.


Two concrete beams follow the topography of the hill to define the outline of the house and an interior garden of citrus plants and aromatic shrubs. All the interiors lie between the two beams underneath a flat roof. The roof provides a surface for solar collection panels. On both ends of the ring, the roof is pierced to create well shaded exteriors. The form of the ring allows for views that pan the entire horizon and good natural ventilation for all inhabited spaces.


At a broader scale, the house is a landscape preservation effort. In the past, the land had been severely scarred in an effort to carve roads. We covered the scars and erased the roads with the excavation material extracted during the house’s construction.


 Once the earth was restored, the plants needed grow again. During the spring, prior to construction, seeds were collected on site and cultivated in a green house to grow more seeds. These were then sowed over the traces of the old roads and three months later the local plants gradually reappeared, hiding any trace of the old roads.


 


decaARCHITECTURE: Alexandros Vaitsos, Carlos Loperena


Area:  393m²


Project location: Agia Galini, Crete, Greece


Construction start and completion dates: June 2014 - January 2016


 


PROJECT TEAM


DECA TEAM


Design Team: Thalia Chrousos, Alison Katri, Giannis Kitanis, Maria Pappa, Argyro Pouliovali


Construction Management: Maria Pappa, Anna Kartasi, Alexandros Vaitsos, Carlos Loperena


 


COLLABORATORS


Structural & Mechanical engineer: Gnomon


Site Management: George Loulakis, Charalambos Papamatheakis


Topographer: Sophia Karanasiou


Planting Consultant: Kalliopi Grammatikopoulou


Photographer: George Messaritakis

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    The Ring House is located on the southern coast of Crete. The house and its garden are designed to form a temperate microclimate, an oasis within an intensely beautiful but physically demanding environment. Two concrete beams follow the topography of the hill to define the outline of the house and an interior garden of citrus plants and aromatic shrubs. All the interiors lie between the two beams underneath a flat roof. The roof provides a surface for solar collection panels. On both ends of...

    Project details
    • Year 2016
    • Work finished in 2016
    • Status Completed works
    • Type Single-family residence / Interior Design
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