LIGHTHOUSE HOTEL MURRO DI PORCO
Entry for International Competition
Design: Andrius Raguotis, Sofia Zournatzidou, Lora Zampara, Michalis Saplaouras, Visualizations: SugarVisuals
Huge clusters of rocks, as if thrown into the sea by a god’s hand, are the ones that mainly compose the islandic Mediterranean landscape. Big rocks and the sea forming a variant of differing environments; from cliffs to sandy foreshores always having the Mediterranean sun as a common reference, Syracuse, the capital of the Syracuse Region, is one of the most important and long lived urban formations of the Mediterranean’s largest island, Sicily.
The peninsula of the Lighthouse of Murro di Porco also shapes a cliffy formation surrounded by sea. This sea, in conjunction with the wind, has been tearing the limestone slope forming a canvas of cavities and mounds. A wild landscape filled with wild sprawling crops. On this canvas, a dominating construction imposes itself upon its surroundings due to its vertical development and Euclidean geometry.
The main intention of the intervention is to combine the virtues of the present environment, natural and manmade, together with the Mediterranean climate and to create a synthesis where the visitor can have the freedom to browse the landscape by himself and experience the roughness of the site. The Lighthouse Sea Hotel refers to guests longing for a stay that would combine the intimacy to the natural elements with a less luxurious yet comfortable shelter.
The exaggerated one-point perspective of the Lighthouse, this dominant single element which must remain visible from anywhere, leads to the creation of the opposite – a piazza, a forum. The platform coexists harmoniously with the raw nature of the rocky landscape while it is developed with no discrete borders between rocks and concrete.
