Secret Underground Home vanishes into Greek hills like a hidden passage
Just beyond the olive groves of Sikamino, Greece, a jagged seam in the earth quietly declares its presence. In a narrow, sloping field an hour outside Athens, a home doesn’t sit on the land—it emerges from it like the half-open eye of a giant resting beneath the hillside.
For Greek architect Tilemachos Andrianopoulos, the challenge was both spatial and conceptual. With only nine meters of width to build on between rows of olive trees, he envisioned something minimal but bold—a home that wouldn’t sit on the land, but become part of it. A crust of earth, he says, “to shelter you and your family and your needs.”
What took shape is a 60-meter-long concrete house, partially buried and partially revealed, with sharp lines that follow the contours of the sloping site. Its planted roof—covered in lavender, thyme, helichrysum, and other wild herbs—blends into the terrain, echoing the distant forms of the Euboea mountains while offering thermal insulation and space for growing herbs.
The home is a study in contrasts: it disappears into the hillside, yet slices through it; it protects, but also provokes. As Tilemachos puts it, this isn’t a camouflage-building. It doesn’t try to vanish—it simply belongs. We explore this sculptural, subterranean dwelling, where nature and structure meet in a quiet, striking duet beneath the Greek sky.
#architecture #Palace #discovery #WORLDS #GREATEST #WGP #travel #ART #ancient #history #structures #house
We were looking at something that will be a crust of earth coming out of the land just to
shelter you your family and your needs and peacefully integrate itself to the surrounding
nature. So you you started and it was just this very narrow olive grove. With a series of olives
and the total width of 30 meters. So we had to keep a distance of 10 meters from each side and
we were left with the width of nine meters only for the house. That's why the house is so elongated
and it has a length of 60 meters. I mean it's coming out of the ground. It's coming out of
the ground yes indeed and the whole roof is planted so you can walk on it. Things are growing
quite lush garden because this finished in 2013 and I remember the greenery was not so lush.
I am surprised today to see this wonderful plant coming out of the roof which is not only
beautiful but it also offers incredible protection from the western sun. Good soil up here I guess.
The thickness of the soil here is just 12 centimeters. These are just pillows with the
appropriate material in order for the plants to grow and each pillow is one by one meter let's say
and it's placed on the roof. So theoretically you may take out the roof as it is with the plants
and take them somewhere else. Is the idea that this is just kind of a place to walk a little park?
Yes of course you can walk on the roof and on the top there is a small circular platform where you
can sit and relax and watch the view. This does feel like a crack in the earth like as if it's
opened up a bit. Yes the whole building is like a crust of earth that is slightly elevated
in order to host its life underneath. That's why at the point where we have the greatest width
here of nine meters we have also the greatest height and then it progressively gets lower
and reconnects to the ground. The house, each house should basically be a shelter. Something that will
protect you and this house is essentially just a roof which is a shelter. That's why I think that
this is quite primal.
So you see that the bedroom is really just part of the outside?
The bedroom is part of the outside and it's also a continuation of the living room. This is the main bedroom
at the one tip of the house and there is the other bedroom at the other tip of the house.
So you fit the living room and the dining room into the widest part of the house
and then everything else just gets really narrow. Yes because it's a rhomboid and while we enter
into the bedroom the space itself gets darker and we are led to the bathroom and then the closet.
Very narrow. This is just the space you need for a bathroom. We have the shower and the basin
and then there is a very very long closet and a small window. Right because for a closet all you
need is something narrow so you chose the tip to be filled by the closet so that you do not
lose any space of the half of the triangle that the rhomboid is. And it slopes. It has
in order to integrate the floor into its field because the plot itself is inclined. So instead of
leveling the plot. No you cannot level the plot and make the plot at the length of 60 meters
completely even. This would be very bad for the plot itself. So you see that the bedroom is very
open. This closes of course but you also close this and in order to achieve both privacy and
less light for the bed itself there is a curvilinear curtain that closes this space.
So then it becomes really intimate in here. Yes it has a very theatrical character. So instead of a
wall you did just a soft close. But there is a second door. So you made that all glass for the
other. So that's more for sound than visual privacy. It's for sound. Yeah. Yes basically.
But so it's open. You're not worried about the bedroom being closed off so much. No and the
owners love it.
Do you ever sleep like this?
So this stays closed.
Because it's the toilet. Yeah.
So it's very long.
Are these all your clothes? Yes.
And your husband's?
He gets the end.
He gets squeezed in the back.
He doesn't mind.
It's funny that a house gets so small.
It's tiny.
This is still the house and it's just tiny.
The last part of the house.
Is part of the land.
So it's getting much much narrower and lower.
And that's just because that's what the land did.
The terrain.
Yes.
And this is the widest point.
Yes.
And that's why we have the sofa.
We may move to the
other part of the house.
To this corridor.
That leads us to
one of the two
smaller bedrooms.
This one with the closet.
That is connected
to a bathroom.
That is also connected
to the second
smaller bedroom.
That is also connected
to the kitchen.
So there is a continuous circular movement
throughout the house.
So it's almost
a serpentine type of...
It is this fluidity.
So a bedroom off a kitchen
I mean it doesn't really...
It has its door.
Of course.
And it's
pink color because
we have a girl inside here
and then this pink
turns into a green
but also a pink basin
and a pink
curtain.
No one is here.
Here is the bathroom
that opens on both sides
and from here
but it also opens from the other side.
And
here is the shower
the toilet
Here is
the office.
Here is a sofa bed.
Couch bed.
When they were small
and here is the space
we used to work here.
Everyone was here.
And here again
the kitchen and the living room.
If you close this door
you can isolate yourself
but
you can also close
the curtains
and everything.
And
she can close
the curtain.
A curtain.
In fact it separates the space.
Two spaces.
One and the other.
Of course.
We choose to put the doors
at places where you cannot feel them
as a board.
So this is the door
that separates
the room
with the space
the basement space underneath.
And it is totally transparent.
So it does not
interrupt the feeling
of the roof.
We didn't want the feeling
of the roof to be interrupted.
It comes down to the ground
and we may walk from this point
to the whole room.
And you're just taking shapes?
You have the basic shape
which is the rhomboid
and then you have to cut it.
The design
derives from the initial
central idea.
And now we may move
to the lower part.
Now you're going underground.
This is completely underground
but it is connected
to the parking.
So these are a series
of supportive spaces.
This is quite nice.
So this is a collection
of toys
of Petros
and his desk.
Oh my gosh, it's so fun!
It's an underground kitchen.
Right?
Probably nice in summer.
Not too hot. Cooler.
This is the
garage entrance.
You see how this facade
is more closed?
So that makes sense.
You're not getting too much sunlight in summer.
You don't want sun in summer
from this part. That's why it's more closed.
And with snow.
It's very good.
That's a house and all the garden
on the roof is just totally white.
The roof.
You cannot even see it.
So it really
has seasons
here.
The landscape here
is quite, let's say,
it's not dramatic, but it's very
gentle. I really like
this plant and I could not
have imagined that the roof
that we had conceived
as hovering
cantilever would
finally be connected
to the ground through this plant.
It's really amazing.
And you really see again
the shrinking.
It's just...
These are games of perspective.
Essentially.
That unite the building itself
to its surroundings.