F. LIAKOS, I. MARCANTONATOU & A. VISVINIS WON AN HONORABLE MENTION FOR YOUNG ARCHITECTS LIGHTHOUSE SEA HOTEL

This competition aimed on emphasizing the existence of the lighthouse in Syracuse, Italy, by asking to design a hotel at the site around the lighthouse. So for us it was very important to highlight the existence of the lighthouse Murro di Porco. So our designing concept was mainly inspired by the lighthouse and of its remaining at the center of the site to remind its meaning and emphasize on its history. Also our scenario was related to historic and traditional features of the historical center of Syracuse’s, as well as the natural features of the landscape.

 

Syracuses – Traditional stone buildings, architectural typologies of facades, many buildings together one-next to each other with one sided faced looking to one direction, roof-type structures, hue of beige gold color which has been created by the years from aged stone and many historical and archeological piece of art and museums, from the ancient times. 

Murro di Porco – steep cliff and harsh vegetation, has very important marine species named as plemmirio marine area which is a protected and which can be explored by diving undersea and exploring the biological sea world, underwater there can be found different archeological itinerary.

 

Architectual Concept  

The lighthouse is in the center of the site and concept is inspired from the circular track¬ of light that the lighthouse does when it lights-up. So we placed the two main structures of the hotel on a conceivable circle around the lighthouse. These two structures were placed left and right of the lighthouse, on the circular track and close to the sea. So using 4 tangents of the circle we created two   x-shaped buildings.

 

Also, in order to reserve as much as possible of the areas elements, the structures of the hotel were placed at the extension of the pre-existing paths of the lighthouse area and at the most flat areas of the site. The form of the building was inspired by the roof-type buildings of Syracuse. Finally the facade of the two x-shaped buildings, while approaching the site, has a pattern inspired from the lighthouse’s light, meaning that the frequency of the light which has a pattern of full and fill is imprinted on the openings of the building which extrudes from the main back-façade.

 

Since the center of the interest is the lighthouse, which worked throughout the year, it was important for us to keep the hotel open all four seasons. So we decided to make it an art station, in order to attract artist but also people interested in art, throughout the year. Also we led to this decision because of the many inspirations that an artist can have from the traditional center of Syracuse, to the natural thesaurus of the landscape, as referred above. Also it was important for us to separate functionally the hotel rooms from the studio workshops and exhibition places. So the hotel room is placed on the right-side, as approaching the site, and the galleries and art studios on the left side.