Text description provided by architects. The Art House is built in the lush oasis of Philothei, a lush green neighborhood nestled within the bustling metropolis. AthensPhilothei was developed in the 1920s as a garden oasis and everything that could be built was protected by strict codes. These codes were at the same time the limit and inspiration for the concept developed by Kallos Turin. The client needed sufficient square footage to house their world-class art collection in a gallery format as well as make room for their extended families.
A dense cube was the shape that emerged from this combination of code and spatial requirements. But Kallos Turin saw these limitations as an opportunity and decided not only to adopt the cube form, but to emphasize it by building from concrete. Concrete enhances the feeling of density and monolithic mass. Kallos Turin understood that this cubic volume needed a foil that pushed back against the rigidity of the form and used two key concepts to provide resistance: the curving lines of circulation through the house, and its surroundings. Garden.
Circulation from the street through the site to the top levels was developed as a winding path and codified as a subtle series of curves in the concrete. Adopting the original conception of Philothei as a garden city, Kallos Turin saw the garden as a way to counter the rigidity of form and to create a densely planted native landscape as an extension of the protected hill. Worked with Doxiades, from which the cube house emerges.
The rear fence provides an open connection with the protected nature behind the house, highlighting the fluid relationship between the property and its natural surroundings. The landscape hints at the idea that plants will eventually swallow the architecture whole.
