House With A Wooden Skin / VARDAstudio

Architects: VARDAstudio
Year: 2012
Photographs: Maria Efthymiou
District: Limassol
Country: Cyprus

House with a Wooden Skin designed by VARDAstudio in Platres, Cyprus, has transformed the hillside home with a luminous interior and rustic stone exterior. Completed in 2022, the design integrates facades and roof with Irokko wood cladding, featuring openings that frame the natural surroundings. Traditional materials like local stone and wood create a solid, enclosed exterior, while a vertical void inside brings light to each floor, enhancing the home’s emotional impact.

House with a Wooden Skin, a residential project by VARDAstudio in Platres, Cyprus, combines a luminous and elegant interior with a rustic exterior of rough stone walls.

The house, located on a dramatic hill in a traditional Cypriot village, features facades and a roof that form a unified entity. VARDAstudio describes it as follows:

“House is located on a very dramatic hill in ethnical village of Cyprus. The facades and the roof of this house comprise one entity. The skin, consisting of Irokko wood cladding, is open in strategic places in order to let the environment in – ‘window to nature’. Maximizing this effect and functional arrangement the entry of the house is placed from the top of the hill. The exterior looks rather solid and enclosed using very traditional materials and details: local stone, wood, shutters. Though the main interior vertical axis – void creates continues emotional experience through all the house bringing the light in each floor.”