Sea Breeze

On the island of Santorini, the Greek design practice K-STUDIO projected Canaves Oia Epitome offering a luxury destination with local textures and traditions, and sense of private and rare space.

Perched above the picturesque fishing town of Ammoudi, Canaves Oia Epitome is inspired by traditional Cycladic architecture, combining natural and earthy materials with modern design and style. The first task was to find a way to work with the imposing concrete and brick structure that already existed on the site, without affecting the overall built area. The planned hotel was relatively big for the island, with 24 rooms arranged, along with a restaurant and reception, in 3 linear blocks that together created a U- shaped plan. The massing felt awkwardly big and disconnected to the landscape. So the designers began breaking it up into several smaller parts and then redistributing them around the site, allowing them space to breathe within their surroundings. This approach totally re-set the design of the rooms and the arrangement of the program across the site. The designers moved the entrance from the bottom of the site to the top by swapping it with the dining room. This gave a more generous reception area and gave the dining room and bar a more sociable poolside location. Also they added a second restaurant, accessible to non-residents via a separate entrance, beneath an extensive pergola overlooking the pool terrace and with stunning sunset views.

Each room has its own entrance courtyard featuring an outdoor shower and de-sanding zone and at the other end of the room a stone box shades an external dining room and frames the view to the private pool with large arched openings. Stone ribbon walls wrap the terraces to give privacy, shade and shelter from the wind and direct each unique viewpoint to the sea beyond. These additions along with the split-level arrangement of the 4-bedrooms means that the room becomes more of a villa in experience, very well suited to family holiday life. The palette is dominated by the extensive use of heavy, black local Santorinian stone. The stone-clad structures blend with the rock of the surrounding landscape, rooting the hotel in its environment. This sense of context is elaborated on with the addition of ancient olive trees and large, strategically placed rocks throughout the hotel in a landscaping concept designed to minimize the visible footprint of the original concrete structures.

In designing the rooms the aim was to increase the perception of space without actually making them bigger. By breaking up the buildings it was created an opportunity for a characteristically Cycladic choreography of enclosed and semienclosed space to provide a comfortably cool lifestyle suited to the heat of the Greek summer. The designers made a series of local stone-clad additions to each room to extend the sense of space and blend the boundary between indoor and outdoor living.

Address: Main Street, 84702 - Oía, Santorini, Greece