NATURAL ARCHETYPE

landscaping and organisation of the outdoor area in a private vacation house

CHANDRINOU, PELOPONESSE 

Intervention Surface: 275,00 sq.m.

Construction: 2015

Study: 2015

Type: Landscape

In a small village in the heart of Messinian countryside, surrounded by the vast olive groves of the area, this typical rural house exists over two generations. The family owners return every end of the summer for the annual olive harvest. For years the courtyard was a vast formless, shapeless space, lacking the ability to receive family gatherings, celebrations and festivities.

A courtyard in a middle of an olive orchard meets its contemporary primitivism version.

Working mostly in section, main purpose was to determine a perimeter of intervention, spread the boundaries and create an ensemble, yet offering different sub-spaces receiving various activities.

The stone walls gain some width to receive benches, are hollowed to create niches, change height to become a bar top. Local stone, rocks, old reusable bricks bring a mineral approach, under the eternal shadows of the maple tree, as reinterpreteting the wooden electric pillars as pergola beams, and earthenware jars as barbeque grills embedded in the counter complete the material range. Concrete horizontal surfaces lighten, dress and coat the intervention.