In Cyprus the question is unavoidable. We build fast here, and mostly for the market: towers sold before the foundations are poured, identical villas rotated towards the same sea view, land treated as a product rather than as a place.

Against that background, I believe what remains worth creating is architecture that earns its permanence-buildings that will still make sense in fifty years, when the brochure and the first buyer are both long gone.

For our practice that comes down to three things. Working with the ground instead of erasing it, so that the topography is still legible after the building arrives.Designing for the climate we actually have-shade, thermal mass, cross ventilation, deep openings-rather than importing a form and cooling it into submission.

And detailing so that a building ages with dignity: materials that gain something from weather instead of losing it. None of this is nostalgic. It is simply the difference between a building that is consumed and a building that is inherited.

In a country where so much of what we put up will be unlovable within a generation, that difference seems to me the only thing still worth the effort.

House on the Hill is our attempt at exactly this, and it is currently under construction.

Savvas Alexandrou, Architect
søasaa, Greece

This reflection is part of UNFINISHED, an ongoing BIG SEE conversation about what still deserves our time, attention and creative energy – and what is worth bringing into the world next.

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