Alianthos Garden Resort Hotel

This project of New Hotel Resort reflects the vision of a hotel owner,  to create a new hotel next to the existing -family owned- one, which will bring a new kind of experience to its current guests. The architects aimed at expressing this experience as a creative merging of the main substances of the topos (τόπος = site, place): its history, climate, landscape, tradition, materials, cuisine, sounds and customs, with contemporary practices of leisure architecture and new technologies in order to achieve a touristic end-product of high quality standards.

On the Mediterranean Sea, and in Crete especially,  indoor and outdoor spaces are fused into a new genre of space which has the ability to adapt accordingly in order to serve persistent sunlight, summer wind, salty water and seldomly a few drops of rain. Spaces are flexible and offer in-between statuses. Rough, earthy materials offer a connection with nature, while directly associating the visitor with the rich Cretan history and local traditions, which go back to the 7th millennium BC.

The space is divided into five (5) zones, each of 3.40 meters wide and 14.90 meters long, which run from north to south with open ends and in-between outdoor-indoor shaded spaces. Each zone can function independently, with distinct uses, and at the same time in combination with the rest, always referring to the central zone which accommodates the water and is open-air. Besides the entrance, the reception and the bar there are smaller corners for quite lounges either next to the water or next to a small library and old distillery or on two fixed swings overlooking the water and the view towards the sea.

Area: 2.795 sq.m.

Location & Year: Plakias , South Crete, 2021

Tags: Architecture hotel design, resort hotel complex, hotel room interior design