Nybh

Lefkada is one of the most beautiful Greek islands, famous for its natural setups and ecosystems. Since the 1976 earthquake, Lefkada’s cities followed an unruly urban and architectural development with no respect to nature nor to the contemporary human needs.

Our proposal aims to restore the relation between the local natural environment and the new hotel architecture. Our architecture highlights and gets defined by the local natural setups and it disdains the hectic urban environment.

Commercially, our proposal suggests an innovative hospitality model, which features the creation of a private beach hotel. Hotel tenants have direct access to their own piece of a private “natural” beach. The adjacent Nydri beach intrudes the hotel architectural setup in order to get closer to each tenant’s room, studio or suite.

To achieve this, we proceeded to 3 major design decisions. Firstly, the new hotel is cut off from the rest of the town of Nydri by a hard concrete wall on the border with the town, keeping an open side looking towards the sea. Therefore, a Pi(Π)-shaped building is formed hugging the beach, while disdaining the inelegant town. Secondly, we let the coastal ecosystem intrude the hotel’s patio, as an essential part of the design process. Thirdly, a soft wooden skin is placed in the building’s border with the patio to give a natural aspect to the interior facade of the hotel.

The outdoor public area, which acts as an extension of the beach, is characterized by two predominant elements. The artificial sand dunes will be stabilized, following the latest and already certified, state of the art, technical solutions. The proposed plantation, will be placed in the adequate distance from the water element, in order to ensure its sustainability.