Casa Del Sol

An aggregate mass perches on the Mykonos bluff, gazing over the Aegean Sea like a small city

“A city is a large house, and a house is a small city.” Organized experientially but without nostalgia, Casa Del Sol aims to make one large residence feel like a Greek village: a collection of odd parts, small buildings and pavilions, that never quite cohere into one single whole. The project takes cues from architectural vernacular of Mykonos Island with its white-washed white volumes, thick limestone bases and partition walls, all of which strongly contrast with nature and inspired Le Corbusier in his early travels. Despite its visual homogeneity in the landscape at first sight, it becomes apparent that every part enjoys an independence while also having a figural relationship to its neighbor.

At the center of our strategy is the need to add enough character and autonomy to each of the parts. Connected either directly, through semi-covered trellises or simply contained outdoor spaces protected from the heavy wind, the meandering organization provides residents and guests with a choreographed sequence of spaces, a constant promenade where architecture frames as much itself as it does the landscape. Wherein material decisions are restricted to variations of white color, texture, and stone composition, what becomes paramount are form, shape, outline, and silhouette. Consequently, the new residence is an organically loose ensemble of lucid white volumes, crystalline masses, and diverging terraces.

Conceptually, the project is a ‘fuzzy aggregate’, a series of autonomous parts not quite cohering into a whole but not entirely fragmentary either. This is not without ambiguity, since it implies a synthesis of disparate elements, sharing a degree of consistency in the combination that allows them to still be distinguished within the overall plan.