Mansion House
Nicosia, Cyprus 2020 - ongoing

This listed building in the heart of Nicosia was built by a local prominent textile merchant in the 1930s. The architectural reimaging of the house and its existing envelope was approached not as a preservation project nor as a new architecture. Contrasting dualities that are usually kept separate confront each other in a state of permanent interaction: New and old, horizontal and vertical, wide and narrow, open and closed – each of these contrasts establish the range of oppositions that define this new domestic environment. This design approach follows the idea of refining through removing, meticulously paring away until what is left cannot be improved by further reduction: sensual space, where the primary experience has been reduced to the quality of light, materials and proportions. This project’s aim was to rethink the architecture while simultaneously dealing with past and future.