Five small summer houses, five simple white forms arranged in a field in Lefkada, Greece. This project by KM engineers reinterperts the principles of enoughness and play and their connection with architectural creation while drawing inspiration from childhood paintings of a house and traditional village settlings.
“Spitakia” is a project of 5 small summer-houses scattered in a vineyard. Or is it a kindergarden. Or a primary school maybe? Could it be a co-working space instead? It could be all of that.
In absence of dramatic sea views and with a limited budget, the focal point of the design evolved around the idea of enoughness.
When are we enough, do enough, have enough?
These questions drew us back to our childhood paintings of a house. A square, topped with a triangle roof, with a main door, and two windows.
Leaving the technicalities aside, “Spitakia” is a project that uses simple, traditional Greek, architectural forms and materials, relying on their repetition, relative movements and rotation to interpret enoughness.
The structural volumes, looked at from a distance, resemble the setting of traditional Greek villages that expand freely and anarchically.
The architectural composition is a hide and seek game, between residences and residents, pathways, swimming pools, olive trees and vineyards.
The setting allows the residents to enjoy privacy, but also socialise in slightly unexpected ways. Views framed by structural edges, shadows and tree branches, create alternating privacy and socialising patterns.
Then the outdoors flexes with the indoors, thanks to the 4.00m wide sliding doors occupying the main facade.
Inside the houses, the high oak ceilings, maintained to their natural colour, reflect the sunlight amplifying its warm tone.
Their 40 sqm open-plan layout, hosts a kitchen and living area, a dinning table / working desk, a double-bed and a bathroom, reintoducing enoughness.
“Spitakia” project aims to create an alternative prism through which beauty, luxury and touristic accommodation is perceived and realised in high-intensity touristic areas, like this.
It mainly, though, wishes to introduce the concept of enoughness in the architectural dictionary which could be an answer to various social and environmental challenges.
Facts & Credits
Title Spitakia
Typology Architecture, Residence
Location Apolpena, Lefkada, Greece
Status Completed, 2023
Architecture & Landscaping KM engineers
Photography le bouquet photography
Text by the authors
READ ALSO: Phlya residences in Chalandri: Redifining urban luxury: Blending urban energy with nature’s tranquility | by Kordas Architects