Quality Affordable HOUSING in Limassol, CY
The main challenge of the urban planning design was to seamlessly integrate a small settlement of 80 residential units into the natural surroundings, on a site outside the city, without allowing it to appear as an intrusive element detached from the landscape. The design response drew on the typology of traditional linear settlements, which have developed organically along roadways and are integrated with the natural slope terrain.
The building units follow the contour lines of the terrain. Three distinct neighborhoods are created. All housing units are arranged along pedestrian zones, while vehicular traffic remains outside the neighborhoods. The built fabric is fragmented into smaller units, reflecting the scale of traditional settlements, in order to create visual corridors and passages that facilitate the prevailing westerly winds in the area.
A fundamental objective of the design was to avoid the conventional apartment-block typology. This led to a deliberate limitation of building heights and the adoption of a semi-detached housing typology, establishing a dialectical relationship between the settlement and its natural surroundings.
Two-storey houses predominate throughout the development, while a limited number of three-storey units are introduced to respond to the site’s topography. In these cases, the lowest level is partially embedded into the ground, allowing the buildings to adapt more naturally to the existing slope. Residential units are accessed either directly at ground level, as is the case for approximately 60% of the units, or via external staircases, a configuration that also characterizes the traditional village of Tochni.
Restricting the buildings to a maximum of three storeys eliminates the need for elevators, thereby contributing to lower construction and long-term maintenance costs. At the same time, the reduced building height reinforces the integration of the settlement into its landscape and helps preserve a more intimate, village-like character.
Two-storey houses predominate throughout the development, while a limited number of three-storey units are introduced to respond to the site’s topography. In these cases, the lowest level is partially embedded into the ground, allowing the buildings to adapt more naturally to the existing slope. Residential units are accessed either directly at ground level, as is the case for approximately 60% of the units, or via external staircases, a configuration that also characterizes the traditional village of Tochni.
Restricting the buildings to a maximum of three storeys eliminates the need for elevators, thereby contributing to lower construction and long-term maintenance costs. At the same time, the reduced building height reinforces the integration of the settlement into its landscape and helps preserve a more intimate, village-like character.
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The morphological, structural, and bioclimatic design of the residential units draws inspiration from the traditional “makrinari” of Tochni, approximately 40 km from the site at a similar elevation. Its elongated form, 50 cm-thick load-bearing stone masonry, limited openings, and pitched roof are creatively reinterpreted to create a contemporary residential identity.
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Load-bearing masonry constructed with thermally insulated blocks functions both as a thermal insulation and as a thermal-mass element of the building envelope. It reduces the number of construction stages and the overall cost of the envelope, while enhancing its thermal inertia. This significantly reduces heating and cooling demands and, consequently, the required capacity and cost of the MEP systems.
A ventilated pitched roof, positioned above the thermally insulated reinforced-concrete slab, enhances summer thermal comfort and reduces cooling loads.
A ventilated pitched roof, positioned above the thermally insulated reinforced-concrete slab, enhances summer thermal comfort and reduces cooling loads.
