Residential Estate in Skyros, Greece

A family plans to live in paradise, on a pristine area of a beautiful out-of-the-way island.  The wish is to live on the land, to experience it with every sense rather than just visually.  This is an exercise in masterplanning, designing the buildings, and landscaping, for immersion into the beauty that exists, and for nurturing family life.

Our approach is to design this totality in terms of protagonists: sun, moon, wind, water, the spirit and culture of the particular island, the lay of this land, vegetation, animals, people.  A careful analysis of the living values of the place points to the elements that will compose the project, which in itself is the synthesis of what is already there with what will come.

Morphologically, the buildings are designed as part tradition, part nature, and part contemporary, experiential living.  As one travels in the forest towards the view, low walls become traces of buildings, which turn into entire buildings, a trajectory drawn from the beautiful experience of old villages half-dissolving back into nature.

This project is about experiencing and protecting the environment, and that is a significant and creative part of the design.  Working with exceptional experts, we have developed environmental strategies that combine state-of-the-art with tradition.  For example, the foundation rock is recycled as the main building material, but insulation is provided with special internal renders.  Solar gain is minimized using traditional, four-pane shutters, while heating and cooling is provided by geothermal pumps operated by photovoltaic panels.  Native flora and fauna is studied and protected, while the visual impact of the project on the existing landscape is kept to a minimum.


Skyros island, Greece


100 Ha




Site Planning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture

doxiadis+ Team

Thomas Doxiadis, Dionysia Liveri, Tea Puric, Aris Petrou, Marina Antsaklis, Argyro Mougolia, Ira Vonderthann

Project Team

Structural Engineer: KYMA
Mechanical Engineer: INSTA
Environmental Engineer: NERCO
Bioclimatic Engineer: BIOREGIONAL