Kalavrita Project was designed by Bllend Design Office in Peloponnisos Dytiki Ellada ke Ionio, Greece. The home overlooks a beautiful mountain range, spread out over three levels with each section being about 50 square meters. The lower and middle shell comprised of local stone, while the top floor is a log cabin. The customer defined the desired outcome as keeping the mountain context, without emitting stereotypical rustic remembrances of existing mountain residential typologies. It involved a major renovation, of a common mountain house. The aim was to create a space where everything would be manufactured on site, using basic materials metal, pine wood and mineral aggregates, human labor and expertise.

The main idea behind that was to let the objects acquire use and sentimental value when the owners would start feeling them as useful and pleasant. The three levels of the home encompass en-suite bedrooms, guest rooms, bathrooms and autonomy in daytime activities. The desire was clear to accommodate the family’s extroversial way of living allowing for co-habitation and mobility for daytime and nighttime zones. The need was to allow for guest families and their children to make creative use of space different hours of day and seasons.

Emitting the architectural feeling of black burnt metal and volcanic stone, construction and levels of nightime and basic traffic patterns were defined by black metal. Mineral aggregates defined the floorplans, wet areas and main elevations while pine wood defined the storage areas. The color palette was reduced to minimum contrast and low saturation in order to let the materials and textures define the context of the project redefining prevailing mountain houses of rustic country feeling.

The challenge of the project was to follow sustainability and bioclimatic values in house remodeling, to utilize maximum natural daylight, create a design lighting scheme using only led lighting sources and emitting the feeling of light candelas using very low light color temperatures. This had a serious impact since the customer desired to leave the existing shell and openings intact.