Perhaps the most ceremonious representation of cypresses is to be found in old etchings. Thus, we decide to prepare a series of images that had the atmosphere of engravings. It turned out that the thick lines of the fence under the thin lines of the wooden slat façade shared a common language with engravings that had always expressed tonality with the thickening of parallel lines.

While excavating, a line of cypresses painstakingly preserved so as to loom high above the house, an actual shading device for the western orientation of the plot.

In order to register the relationship between the house and the terrain, three plans were prepared for each floor. In these drawings, darker areas indicate the volume intersected at each level. The layered representations adopt the same graphic vocabulary as the sections previously discussed: a field of lines whose variation in thickness produces tonal differentiation. Each line also exhibits a subtle fluctuation in width, imparting a slightly artisanal character to the texture. While such patterns may appear archaic, recalling the techniques of historical engravings, this graphic language remains present today in the complex micro-line engravings used in banknotes to deter counterfeiting. A comparable effect occurs in the façade of the house: to allow diagonal views from the bedroom, the wooden elements undergo a gradual, incremental rotation, producing a barely perceptible yet continuous gradation across the surface.

The unified kitchen/playroom on the ground floor, a space facing the courtyard, turned out to be the hub of the house, a friendly, welcoming and relaxed area. The inclusion of a library that doubled as projection surface with a retracted screen hid from view on its top, along with a sofa and a dining table, made this a multifunctional space. Flanked on either side with greenery, we saw fit to select patches of green color in the carpentry.

Immediately across the bathroom, the corridor becomes a long library itself. Conceived for some time as a train corridor, linking three small courtyards, this became an exercise in Charlotte Periand’s iconic furniture. What’s more, we designed the library in unison with the doors of the bedrooms -the storage of books and the opening of doors were articulated as a single wooden piece. In a lecture, we suggested the similarity to an aerial photo of a railway station with a dozen tracks.

The children’s bathroom was originally conceived as a testament to Le Corbusier’s colorful residential interiors at his iconic Unité d'habitation, Marseille (1946-52). Along the process, the variety of colors started to be more akin the inspiring interiors of Ray Kappe: wooden finishes in door and wall areas combine with an intense blue counter basin. This selection of materials and colors manage to extend nature within the bath, a unification already exercised literally, by the coupling of this bathroom with a planted atrium.

On the upper floor the handle of the sliding wooden doors gave inspiration for a custom-made rotating handle for the doors.

Construction details sketched at the tablet: this was where Memos’ penchant for drawing met the accuracy of millimeter paper. So as to provide the contractor with details for a custom-made marble washbasin that was flanked by metal storage boxes, sketches proved more efficient than cad drawings. Colorful and mixed with collaged photos of towels or cosmetic bottles, they strove to introduce a level of verisimilitude to drawings that otherwise remain quite antiseptic.

“Rain Reversed”: Early morning in a hotel in Chalkidiki, 2020. These leaves shining in contre-lumière would normally be enlisted among the carefully staged contrasts that Aires Mateus orchestrated in his installation Field. However, this video documents a rather scarce co-existence of transparencies very dear to us: leaves and water.