NOŪS Santorini stands at Mesaria, Thira, Santorini, inland and off the caldera rim. It has 121 rooms and suites on a plot organised around a 1,000 square metre overflowing pool, and a contemporary art collection hung and sited through the guest rooms and the public spaces rather than gathered in one gallery. At about 108,000 square feet, it is one of the largest hotels on Santorini.
Architecture and interiors are by Divercity Architects with MPlusM Architects. Divercity works from London and Athens, MPlusM from Athens, and their founding partners, Nikolas Travasaros and Memos Filippidis, had worked together on Grace Santorini before this. They were appointed here in 2010. The Greek financial crisis put the work on hold, and the resort was completed in 2022, 12 years on. The landscape is by Doxiadis+ and the lighting scheme by Eleftheria Deko and Associates.
It was the first resort outside Athens for the group that runs the InterContinental Athens, New Hotel, Periscope and Semiramis, and trades as Donkey Hotels S.A.
Arrival
Arrival runs up a stepped entry promenade to the reception desk. Three successive pergolas cross it, designed as suspended gardens with climbing ivy, and a water course beside the path rolls over stepped lava slabs, a reference to the island’s volcanic history. At reception a carved black wall stands for the black rock of the volcano and for the first sight of Santorini from a boat. The reception then opens onto the central pool, with the spa building beyond it.
The collection
The art was assembled by Nadia Argyropoulou, credited as art curator on the project. The collection runs to 15 named contemporary artists and collectives, among them Eva Papamargariti, Hypercomf, Irini Miga, Lito Kattou, Panos Tsagaris and Sofia Stevi. Nothing is gathered into a gallery. Each work is listed against the room it occupies, so the roster reads as a floor plan: a VASKOS piece in Spa Treatment Room 1, a Psychladic in a superior guestroom, a Locus Solus in a pool suite. That placement is what gives the house its gallery-like air.
Materials
The palette comes from Santorini’s geological strata, where graphite and black blend with earthy reds, ochre and deep brown. In the restaurant, bar and staircases it arrives as terrazzo mixed with fragmented coloured marble. In the guest rooms the timber cladding is smoke treated in reference to the volcano, and the lighting elements are made of volcanic stone. Light filters through bespoke wicker shutters drawn from the kouloura, the local method of training a vine folded close to the ground. The suites step across levels to open the sea views and to echo the way the island’s villages nest against a slope. In the renovated bungalows, curved walls cluster around private gardens.
The spa and the grounds
The spa has an introverted plan that simulates the ravines dug into the soil at older island settlements. Inside, white brick filters make porous boundaries and a play of light and shadow, a reference to the architectural idiom of Santorini’s reconstruction after the 1956 earthquake. It has five treatment rooms, indoor and outdoor pool, sauna, steam bath, cold tank, plus an outdoor yoga area and a fitness room. One treatment room is for couples and has its own outdoor jacuzzi, and the treatments use Ariadne Athens, a Greek line made with Greek and Mediterranean ingredients. Outside, a Nerium grove the house calls The Oasis, planted with palms and local and exotic species, wraps the central pool and the public rooms. There are three restaurants and three bars.
Who is this for
The house suits a traveller who wants space to spread out and a long, flat day around water. The Euphoria two-bedroom suites take up to five people, with a 76 square metre outdoor area and a 30 square metre private pool, which works for a family. The Harmonia private pool bungalows take up to three, with 250 square metres of outdoor ground and an 18 square metre pool. The setting is palm shade, water and a short drive from the airport.
