Thermes is a tiny mountain village in northern Greece surounded by hot springs, product of   geothermal activities taking place underground. However, the village is little known and has yet to develop its turism facilities. Our project during the 4th year of architecture school consisted of designing a new complex around the hot springs of the area including a bath house and visitors acommodations. After visiting the area we concluded in designing a compact main bath space dug inside the mountain slope so as not to disturb the natural landscape. We focused mainly on incorporating a feeeling of mysticism and exploration in our design, trying to blend together spaces οf various qualities, light and dark, sound and silence, solid and liquid. Therefore our design prioritised on what the user sees, hears or feels while moving around rather than a top down programmatic solution.

After getting a general plan layed down we started experimenting with natural lighting and it’s incorporation in produced space to highlight all the different intentions. For example linear skylights were used to      indirectly light up the entrance hallway. In other cases we on purpose kept corridors dark with light spotting entrances to the different sections. It was a very  fun and interesting procedure deciding where to block and where to allow sunlight to enter, creating 3d models to study how it changes during the day. By doing so we came to     understand and experiment with many new things and expanded our knoledge on the topic.