Aristides Dallas Architects' Lap Pool House paints a picture of minimal poetry

The Lap Pool House designed by Aristides Dallas Architects emerges from a craggy, natural landscape as a “man-made cave”, its geometric form a modern reshaping of rocky cavities and ledges. Located in Tinos island, Greece, the house gazes down a gentle slope and toward the warm blue Aegean sea, presenting a contemporary aesthetic that clashes beautifully with the dry terrain it partially buries itself in.

“The scope of the project is to camouflage within the landscape while maintaining a dynamic presence of itself,” shares Aristides Dallas, founder and lead architect of the Athens and Tinos based studio. The Lap Pool House thus employs clean lines and a rudimentary colour palette that draws from the hues of local rocks, while its clean texture and materiality renders it a minimal visual retreat. According to the design team, the residential architecture is a physical embodiment of the "impact between stone and air".

The home complements the site as well as dramatically competes with it, unfolding across three concrete building volumes. A gleaming, clean cut rectangular pool extends from the front of The Lap Pool House, giving it its name. With its colour and fluidity, the pool water contrasts the bare, textural concrete skin, as a gestural element celebrating the interaction between the man-made and the natural.

Appearing as an extension of the sparse landscape is a single slab of concrete that covers these three volumes. This feature makes possible pockets of open and closed spaces that break the clinical look of the residential design. Aristides Dallas Architects planned it such that it creates “spatial points of exposure and introversion”. Lodged in an earth crack, the entrance has been placed at the dwelling’s rear, while various intentional incisions on the roof let in daylight and air into the house.

Private spaces, an expansive living room, a cosy bedroom and guest house are positioned inside the two volumes that project from the slab and sit perpendicular to each other. The roof that blends into the ground on one side cantilevers at the other, “setting its appearance as a greatly innovative structural element. That way, in the middle space under the slab, the common areas are formed,” explains Dallas.

At the client’s wish, this cantilever also performs as a sheltered, semi-outdoor and informal living space which sets dialogue with the minimal, almost bare interior, informed in a chorus of white, grey and accents of wood. Along with the extended pool, this feature underlines the linearity of the whole form, reaching out to the horizon.

Light grey follows inside the house as well, with the walls and the floors rendered in the same monotone shade. The sparseness of the exterior is echoed in the décor inside, with simple glass sliding doors framed with wooden as well as grey painted steel frames. Small potted plants dot the insides to break the monotony, along with the tables and countertops that are done in dark timber. A polished black recliner sits with a rust coloured sofa, a fabric lined steel chair, a glass topped coffee table, a black and white vase set and a floor lamp in the spacious living room.

“Embracing an idea of merging with the landforms and elements around it, the building urges the habitant to live with absolute connection with the scenery of Tinos and with nature altogether,” says Dallas, who placed The Lap Pool House and designed for it, ample vantage points to enjoy the island and the sea that stretches out leisurely in front of it.

Project Details

Name: The Lap Pool House
Location: Tinos, Greece
Architect: Aristides Dallas Architects
Architects: Aristides Dallas, Konstantinos Stathopoulos
Structural Engineering: Emmanouil Roditis, Theodoros Chrysovergis
E/M engineering: Evangelos Tentis
Construction: Aegean Construction