Grace Santorini Hotel & Villa

Our iconic and award-winning design for the Grace Santorini Hotel has redefined and set new standards for the boutique hotel in the Aegean Sea through an architectural language that is unique but highly contextual, sitting comfortably in the landscape of Santorini.

This 20-room hotel is carved into the cliff-face 300m above Santorini’s volcanic caldera and the understated design allows this extraordinary landscape to take centre stage. The hotel provides a contemporary interpretation of vernacular architecture: economy of space, radical simplicity, and organic forms. The infinity pool’s jagged outline echoes the zigzag paths that criss-cross Santorini’s sheer terrain.

Santorini’s hotel rooms are invariably front-loaded to face the view, leaving residents exposed to passers-by. To ensure privacy, fragments of volcanic rock are positioned in the windows of four rooms, interspersed with apertures that provide glimpses to the sea. The feature echoes a local architectural technique, more commonly used for retaining walls, in which minimal amounts of mortar are used, leaving gaps between the stonework.

Credits

Location: Santorini, Greece

Status: Complete, 2010 (Hotel),  2012 (Villa)

Client: Grace Hotels Group

Team: Divercity Architects & Mplusm

Lighting Designer: Alkistis Skarlatou (Villa)

Space Consultant: Sofia Vantaraki

Contractor: FMI

Photos: Erieta Attali & Serge Detalle

Awards: The European Hotel Design Awards / Shortlisted, 2010

World Architecture Festival Awards – Holiday and Hotels / Shortlisted, 2011

World Architecture News Award – Hotel of the Year /  Shortlisted, 2011

The Restaurant & Bar Design Awards – International Restaurant / Shortlisted, 2011

Conde Nast Traveller – Gold List for Best for Location, 2012