Villa Troy Residential House

The 340m² private house in the outskirts of greater Nicosia was designed to feature contemporary aesthetics, acquiring permanence with the use of timeless materials. Concurrently, the house caters to the needs of a family of four, facilitating communication and comfort.

The building’s placement enhances natural ventilation and lighting, and large openings add to the connection between inside and out.

I am planning to make some exhibitions and show our work and inform them about the award which is very important for us. We are proud for it.

Architecture is at its most powerful when it tells a story that is deeply personal to its inhabitants. When I discovered the owners’ names were Paris and Helen, it felt like a cosmic invitation to bridge the gap between classical antiquity and contemporary Mediterranean living. The names immediately evoked the legendary city of Troy, prompting a central question: What would a Trojan home look like if it were built today?Instead of literal historical replication, I used mythology as a narrative framework. The design explores the duality of the names—the legendary romance, the grandeur of a fortified city, and the drama of epic poetry. It allowed us to bestow the structure with an unmistakable, poetic identity, turning a 340-square-meter private family residence into a modern-day citadel where history and everyday life beautifully coexist.

The materials chosen for the exterior act as visual metaphors for the legendary Bronze Age city. To emulate the famous, impenetrable walls of Troy, we strategically utilized heavy stone cladding on a prominent load-bearing wall along the façade, extending this texture to the enclosure at the rear of the property. This grounds the house, offering a sense of permanence and security.To contrast this earthy, protective shield, we introduced sharp, precise metal elements—a material that defined the era of the Trojan War. The five custom-designed ornamental brackets on the façade are a direct tribute to this history; their angular, aerodynamic forms mimic the spears of ancient warriors. By rendering these historical textures into clean lines and bold minimalist geometric forms, the materials bridge centuries, transforming ancient defensive motifs into striking contemporary ornamentation.

From a functional standpoint, the double-height void at the vestibule serves as the absolute physical and volumetric core of the home. In an open-plan layout, it is easy for spaces to bleed together without definition. This vertical volume acts as an anchor, allowing the lounge, living area, and dining room to unfold seamlessly around it while establishing a grand sense of arrival.Mythologically, the void honors the grand, scale-defying courts of epic palaces. It draws the eye upward, celebrating space and light while fostering effortless visual and acoustic communication between the ground-floor social spaces and the private quarters upstairs. It symbolizes the open, welcoming heart of a home designed for a modern family of four, while preserving the dramatic volume you would expect when stepping into a space inspired by legend.