Hiboux Architecture unveils domed stone houses in Meganisi, designed to immerse guests in the landscape

Located on Meganisi island, the house is designed as a complex of scattered domed round volumes, and a square grid canopy connecting them, amongst 42 existing olive trees on terraces retained by dry-stack walls (xerolithies). Comprised of a main residence at the center and five guest houses, the complex is inspired by the pastoral round stone dwellings found in several places, some of them in nearby Eglouvi, Lefkada. The stone volumes aim at conserving the terraced configuration of the ground, following the curved patterns. The studio paid respect to the pre-existing habitat of the place and used the same idea for a new retreat among the existing non-human living, including trees, or non-living, such as rock entities, providing a minimum disturbance of these entities. As the architects describe, “The steel canopy contrasts the almost archaeological existing surface of the land and its habitation as a protecting layer over it, acquiring a form so often found in the shepherds’ sheds of the Mediterranean landscape, a thin cover parallel to the inclination of the ground. The domed volume of the master bedroom and a two-storey “watchtower” with an accessible roof, form the main residence by means of glass curtain walls that ensure an inner heated space, which serves for living/dining and kitchen while allowing the flow of the terraced land to traverse the entirety of the house. The indoors-outdoors continuity creates spaces valuing a living in the countryside. The complex serves as a landscape-immersive retreat for groups who can rehearse together on the hexagonal stage (shala), train and gather around a common outside table, called the piazza”.