Private Villa and Tennis Court, Corfu, Greece

Located on a private estate on the eastern coast of Corfu, this project integrates itself within the hillside coastal site. The massing of the building has been strategically developed to balance views and privacy; weaving itself behind a dense grove of olive and Cyprus trees.

The brief was to provide a private office and two guest apartments integrated into the landscape and encourage privacy through blending into the landscape, invisible from adjoining properties and the beach below.

The forms are driven by capturing select sea views between the trees through the ‘pushing and pulling’ of the building volume. Occupying the footprint of an existing tennis court the building has been excavated into the hill to allow a new tennis court to be reinstated in the same location while providing concealed underground parking and back of house functions for the estate.

The exterior has been treated with local stone cladding to complement the existing landscape retaining walls found throughout the island. Floor to ceiling glazing maximises the light penetration into the apartments as well as providing views out to the Ionian Sea.

An extensive landscape plan has been developed by renowned landscape architect Ian Kitson that seamlessly blends the building into the natural hillside site.