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Luxury Mediterranean homes
Four houses that get filed under one name. What makes an Italian villa, a Spanish court, a Moroccan riad, and a Greek house different, and which details are worth asking for.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Things to think about before hiring an architect
The first meeting is more useful if the plan, the pictures, the finishes, and the money have already been thought about. An architect cannot invent your household.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Italian style homes
A formal face, a roof that sits low, and a loggia lined up with the garden. That is the villa. The stone farmhouse is a different Italian house.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
The Spanish villa
White walls, a low red roof, a court you enter before you enter the house, and iron at the windows. The front does not have to match left to right.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Moroccan houses
Blank to the street, open to a court. The arch is a horseshoe, the tile is geometric, and the roof is as likely to be a terrace as a slope of clay.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Greek houses
White cubes, flat roofs, and windows set deep in the wall. Or a formal townhouse with a pediment. They are both Greek. They are not the same request.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Details of a Mediterranean house
The tile roof is only the start. Tails, corbels, a cornice, the arch, and the depth of a window are what a client can point to and ask for by name.
· MAR DESIGN STUDIO
Common features of Mediterranean homes
The same pieces recur from Andalusia to the Italian coast, and in the houses built after them: a low clay roof, thick pale walls, an arch, and a court that gets used.