Completed in 2011, the two-story Plane House—a wordplay riffing on its simplicity and strong, horizontal lines—now caters to what Konstantinos calls two “speeds” of life. Designed by k-studio, the Plane House is an idyllic vacation home perched on a mountain on the Greek island of Skiathos. It was a hugely personal and collaborative project between the Mourtzouchoses and another set of brothers, their architect buddies, Dimitris and Konstantinos Karampatakis, of Athens’s K-Studio. “I’ve followed his career closely,” says Achilleas of his childhood friend Konstantinos. “All I requested was two master bedrooms, one for Odysseas and one for myself, but otherwise I gave him total freedom. I trust Konstantinos completely.”
For guests, the lower floor houses a living room and four bedrooms. This is a typical Greek summer-vacation house, where the attitude is about being very relaxed. The home commands panoramic views of beaches, nature nudges its edges, and sustainable design informs its function. A tree shoots up through an opening in a wide overhang fronting part of the house, and the main entrance is carpeted in grass that grows through perforated concrete blocks allowing rainwater to hydrate the soil beneath. The omnipresence of the landscape is bolstered by an abundance of natural materials in the structure, from iroko wood decking on the sea-facing terrace and adjacent floors to drystone walls made of slate from the next island over. The planted roof diverts rainwater into a large tank (graywater hydrates the garden and fills the toilets) and an array of solar panels generates electricity.
