Hidden Ladies Suites / inDetail Architecture

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The buildings make ample use of glass, making the interior spaces look as if it is one with the surroundings. The whole floor of each suite is laid with cement paste that turns vertical on the walls, adding to the continuity of space. The paste ascends to cover any fixed-built furniture, as if they are part of the "ground". The interior design is kept stripped-down yet sophisticated, with plenty of details in wooden surfaces, embedded window casings, ceiling, and lighting. All-in-all, the project aims to offer its residents a modern, minimal space to live, cut into a natural, minimal environment.Text description provided by the architects.The location of the project is characteristic of the southern coast of the Regional District of Chania in Crete, the White Mountains towering over the place to the north, and the Libyan Sea opening wide as if infinite to the south of it. The mountains disintegrate moving towards the sea as rocky gorges and gullies. One of these dry gullies runs through the project's plot, meeting a larger one later on that ends in a hidden beach. Such as the topography of the site is, it calls out for a play with the precipice, even the concept of the gully. Meanwhile, the southern Crete climate, hot and dry, forms a barren natural landscape, dominated by thyme, oregano, and dry bushes, on top of which the region's cultivating tradition creates grids of olive trees. Some of these spread into the building plot.The site itself had already established a vocabulary of a dry terrain, discontinued by broken lines. In came the building program and its necessities. The project consists of four 45 m2 suites with their courtyards, which require privacy from each other, along with an unobstructed view of the place's features. The synthesis is arranged as four new "valleys" cut gradually into the ground along the terrain's contours, each one ending at the yard a suite. The olive trees' grid is left untouched as much as possible to ensure the general continuity of the landscape. The northern scarps of these "valleys" form the main facades of the buildings, while the southern ones define the boundaries of each studio's outside living spaces, preventing the soil in front from spilling into them. Each Lady is hidden from the next, embedded into the ground, being able to look only beside and above the previous one, as well as across the gully, enjoying the view of both the sea and the rocky formations.White color is used to outline the "valleys'" ridges, on the buildings' facades, and landscaping walls. The walkway that connects the suites' domain entrance with the adjacent hotel is paved with stone, a material that ascends vertically to hold the soils beyond the buildings' area. Stone blends with the surrounding rocky terrain - being cut from it, actually - as well as with the various enclosures and fences of old. Polished concrete of mostly white cement is used for the rest of the hard landscaping, in order to give a sense of a continuous ground.