House on the horizon –Euboea

HOUSE ON THE HORIZON – VACATION HOUSE IN EUBOEA – GREECE – 2009

Vasilis Ghikapeppas – Architect

1^st PRIZE – Best project from Steven Holl and Finn Geipel – DOMES AWARDS 2011

A linear layout sets its mark on the terrain and is aligned with the view. It makes use of the north wind’s protection. It defines a compositional line, on which alternations of enclosed, open and intermediate space are articulated. It negotiates integration into the location, how a pattern becomes a body with the monolithic nature of its material and the respiration of its mass. The house appropriates the horizon: that is the intention. It incorporates it within as an organic part of itself, as a lived experience. It integrates it, giving a place to the shell of its apparent immobility, as a permanent act of observation. A horizontal cleft projects all the alternations of the light, of the atmosphere, of the weather as a daily happening in the interior. Much has been said about how and why the vertical aperture has been turned into a horizontal one, how distance and depth turn the geographical area into a part of the house, into a screen, into a clean surface, how space is converted into time, and how, time is literally made into a surface. Movement lengthens action, lineates space, proposes behaviours. Positions and stances are determined in what is enduring and what is temporary, exhibiting the view on a stage. Through the body, we are positioned here and in the world. Civilization does not correspond to the objects and representations, but to bodily processes of apprehension, enjoyment, and well-being. The protection of the body and the activation of the senses are things we owe; we owe the safeguarding of the trace. The line of the wall is co-ordinated with the aperture/cleft. They are in harmony in order to prepare for dwelling, sometimes as a stage/ podium on which an action is performed and conversely as a place for observing the world of the horizon. Alternating roles.