Architecture practice Proarh has completed the Issa Megaron, a holiday home on the Croatian Island of Vis that blends with its surrounding. The brief was to design a house for a temporary family retreat on a site without infrastructure, at the same time completely satisfying the needs of its inhabitants.
The house is envisioned as a dug in volume, a residential pocket between the stretches of space forming walls, an artificial grotto, a memory of a primitive shelter. Consisting of two levels, the residence encloses a dining area, kitchen and lounge in one open space on the ground floor that is linked to the pool deck and terraces, and the sleeping quarters together with an additional lounge on the first floor. All the bearing elements are made of reinforced concrete, which in the interior are also a finished look.
The Zagreb-based office has built the house on a site without any infrastructure or sufficient accessibility, meaning that self-sustainability was a key parameter. The Issa Megaron is designed with natural cooling and ventilation systems, rainwater exploitation, solar panels, and other elaborate ways of making the most out of natural resources, enabling the residence to function as a place for life.
Issa Megaron is a specific example of sustainable construction and production in locations that are abandoned, unpopulated, not only in Croatia but also in the Mediterranean as a whole. Easily available and renewable materials used from the site or extended location, ensure a lower cost of transportation and work. Wood is used on the deck on the south terrace because the wood has extremely low heat conduction, making it a pleasant pool deck surface use during the summer months.
