Located on a spectacular sea front site on the Greek island of Crete, Elounda Beach is one of the world’s leading hotels. The scale of the site is at once both vast and intimate offering uninterrupted views across the Aegean Sea to the horizon yet still benefiting from the sheltering nature of the embracing bay. The Villas project is a contemporary intervention on the coast and aims to connect these scales, acting as a link and blurring the boundaries between the land and the sea.
Set back on Crete’s northeast coast, the row of volumes face the water as anchored yachts towards the sea, while addressing and complementing the urban context on the land side. The newly created pathways between the bungalows afford open views to the sea and have a reduced scale that echo the streets of coastal villages of old in a contemporary way.
The strong geometry of the individual units is articulated as a fluid coastal landscape by way of the sequence of rounded surfaces and 45 degree wall lines that carve the depths of the volumes. The system emerges as a new artificial landscape relating the two different conditions.
The use of a natural dark grey stone for the exterior wall cladding on the set the new volumes is keeping in harmony with the local environment while the use of natural materials such as wood and leather interiors enwraps the people in a discreetly opulent atmosphere, in balance with the natural surroundings.
