These two vacation houses are situated well outside Lemythou Village’s historic core, upon a hill with very few constructions in the broader vicinity. Moreover, the immediate context is characterised by dense vegetation, and it faces southwards – with Prodromos Village in the near-horizon and Limassol District in the distant-horizon. Notwithstanding the fact that the context hosts abundant forest vegetation, the actual site is almost devoid of mature trees – so the project does not entail any cutting of protected flora.
Given that the site’s topographical terrain is dramatic, with a somewhat agricultural background, the Project took the approach of distributing a series of ‘Landscape Retaining Walls’, which are to be constructed via local stone and that are typical in these conditions. In accord with their primordial function, these Retaining Walls are to provide structural organisation upon the ragged terrain, with a materiality that is of the site – rather than imposed upon it.
Once these Landscape Retaining Walls are deployed, the two houses are strongly integrated with them, to the point where a large part of each house’s functional accommodation is ‘subsumed within’ the Walls. Indeed, while one house is almost entirely a ‘spatial incident’ in one of these Retaining Walls, with only a prismatic white volume sitting above it, the other house balances more equally the part within and the white prism above the Retaining Wall.