Architect Alexandre Pavlidis has completed Within the Earth, a house on the Greek island of Sifnos contained within a series of sunken stone walls that step down a coastal hillside.
Referencing the region’s use of stepped terraces to grow olives and grapes, Paris-based Alexandre Pavlidis aimed for the home to be “almost invisible”, creating subterranean spaces that open out onto expansive, panoramic patios.
“The site is part of a Cycladic landscape structured by agricultural terraces and retaining walls,” he told Dezeen. “These walls are not decorative elements; they are what allow the land to be cultivated, to retain soil, and to resist erosion in a rocky and exposed environment.”
“In this beautiful nature, the core concept was to create a house that would not appear as a new object in the landscape, but as a continuation of the existing agricultural terraces,” he added.
Within the Earth is entered from the base of an existing shepherd’s hut at the top of the site, where a staircase leads down into a skylit atrium with a shallow pool of water that separates the bedroom and living spaces.
While the living, dining and kitchen area opens directly onto a large terrace, the bedrooms are set back behind chunky stone supports, which offer privacy to a row of small, private patio spaces.
At the more subterranean back of the home, light is introduced by small, open-air patios planted with trees and, in the bathroom, a cylindrical shower sits beneath a deep skylight.
On the home’s lower level, a pavilion-like shelter supported on drystone columns sits alongside a swimming pool set within a second expansive terrace.
“The visitor leaves the exposed landscape and gradually enters a cooler, darker, more protected world. The house is revealed slowly, through stone, shadow, patios and framed views of the sea,” Pavlidis said.
“The communal areas extend lengthwise along the slope, in a way that recalls the linear geometry of the agricultural terraces,” he continued. “Patios and skylights bring daylight into the buried plan and create moments where the house opens vertically to the sky.”
The rough drystone walls of Within the Earth are complemented by exposed concrete ceilings and polished stone floors.
Contrasting these surfaces are frames, furniture and joinery made of oak, which Pavlidis said helps make the interiors feel “inhabited rather than purely excavated.”
On the neighbouring island of Serifos, Greek studio Mold Architects recently completed a hospitality retreat, using stone excavated from the site to form a series of low-lying stepped guesthouses.
The same studio also created a sunken house called NCaved on Serifos, which has a wedge-shaped form embedded into the rocky hillside to shelter it from strong winds.
The photography is by Alexandre Pavlidis unless stated otherwise.
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