Vora is three villas at Imerovigli, on the caldera rim, at the highest point of the caldera. From the reception at the top of the site, a path of cut grey volcanic rock drops down through the plot, turning the walker from one angled wall to the next. That cut is the idea of the place. It answers the circulation problem of a steep and fairly small site, and on its way down it divides one soft white mass into three villas.
Village houses along this rim are usually tight and overlooked by their neighbours. The brief given to K-STUDIO, which drew both the architecture and the interiors, was a small boutique hotel on the edge of the volcano, and the practice went the other way and made room instead. All three villas sit above or below ground level, and none looks into another. The privacy comes out of the section of the site itself.
A cave house, and two stacked below it
The uppermost villa is a renovated cave house of the kind the island has always built, and the renovation keeps its characteristic layout: three rooms that move in succession deeper into the rock. The first, at the cave opening, is light-filled and looks out over what remains of the original crater. The second, further in, is cooler and darker, and gives the guest somewhere to go when the heat outside becomes oppressive. The third, pushed far back into the rock of the mountain, is cool and quiet, a retreat from the rest of the villa.
The two newer villas sit below the cave, formed by the sharp cuts of the path. Each takes the linear plan of the cave house and stacks it, an upper floor of living space over a lower floor of bedroom space, so that view and daylight reach the bedrooms as well as the lounges. The two are angled away from each other, each towards its own sunset, which is also what keeps one from seeing into the other. The work was completed in 2018 across a built area of 265 square metres.
Rock, char and lime wash
Two things drove the design, the volcanic rock and the local vernacular. The rock was cut to make the routes through the site and to hold its boundaries, and it is left to read as rock. Charred wood and blackened gun-metal keep that register indoors. Against them sit the soft curves of traditional ‘Aspa’ render and a white lime wash finish, with lighter stone and naturally pale linens to settle the rooms down. The architects paired the oppositions deliberately, dark against light and sharp against soft.
The three villas
Villa Omikron takes 64 square metres indoors and 34 outdoors. A living room with a dining area leads to a king bedroom set discreetly apart, with a kitchen behind an arched opening on the right. Deeper in, the bathroom holds a freestanding bath of black Vasaltis marble, a walk-in shower and a double sink, and the veranda outside carries the spa tub.
Villa Ro has 86 square metres indoors and 30 outdoors, in a palette of beige, dark wood and black. Villa Alpha, the duplex, has 100 indoors and 25 outdoors, with a balcony running the full width of each of its two levels above the caldera cliff. Each of the three villas sleeps two in a king bed and has its own heated spa tub outdoors.
The client was a native of the island, Yannis Bellonias. Vora won Resort, AHEAD Europe 2018, credited to him and to K-STUDIO, and it is a Design Hotels house.
The site is 7 kilometres from Santorini airport by car and 9.5 kilometres from Athinios port.
Who is this for
Vora suits two people travelling together. Imerovigli is a village of terraces and small churches set on the rocks above the water, and the walk to Skaros Rock, past the ruined 13th-century Venetian castle and the blue-domed Theoskepasti church on its flank, leaves from the same stretch of rim. Firostefani and its restaurants are a five-minute walk. Fira is 1.5 kilometres on, with the museums, the shops and the promenade, Oia is 8 kilometres north, and the black sand at Kamari is 10 kilometres east.
