The white, blocky form of this holiday villa by Kapsimalis Architects is intended to be a "contemporary translation" of the chalky houses seen around Santorini, Greece.

Summer Villa ? which forms part of Santorini's existing Andronis Arcadia hotel ? has been designed by Kapsimalis Architects to appear as a "synthesis of cubist white volumes".
The 600-square-metre building is situated on the northwestern tip of the island in the small town of Oia, looking out over the Aegean sea.

"The main objective of the project was to design the villa as a continuity of the rest of the hotel," explained the practice.
"It's a contemporary translation of the traditional architecture found in the villages of Santorini."
The villa has therefore been constructed as a cluster of pale, rectilinear volumes. Some of its external structural walls are punctuated with rectangular openings or intersect to form open-air walkways around the villa.
Varieties of wild grass and spindly olive trees have been planted along the building's roof, helping it blend into the surrounding hillside.

Internally, the building has been simply divided into three levels. The top floor accommodates a single guest suite, from which a narrow channel of water runs out towards a private sunbathing area.

A stairwell illuminated by an overhead skylight leads to the ground floor.
It plays host to an open-plan communal area, decked out in natural tones and materials to evoke a "sum...