Athens studio Tense Architecture Network has completed a concrete house that staggers down a hillside in rural Greece (+ slideshow).

Residence in Kallitechnoupolis is a three-storey building that begins near the top of the slope. As it descends, the building widens to create tiered balconies facing out across the landscape.

Tense Architecture Network describes the structure as a protective shell that shields the house from its neighbours and concentrates views in only one direction.

"The inclined prism of the shell follows the natural inclination and descends towards the ground via the intensely oblique cut of its eastern front," says the studio.

The base of the building cantilevers outwards, making room for a swimming pool on the lowest level, plus an outdoor staircase climbs down one of the side walls to meet a terrace positioned halfway down.

The architects used concrete for the entire structure, adding a dark tint to the exterior walls so that they contrast with the pale grey interior surfaces.

"Earthly dark at the outside, lighter in the inside, its colouring is aiming at the maximum possible tension of the shell's introvertedness," say the architects.

Living and dining rooms can be found on the two upper floors, while bedrooms are located on the bottom floor around a series of curved partitions.

Tense Architecture Network have completed several residential projects recently, including an angular house with a partially submerged body and a house with a boxy concrete upper floor.

See more architecture by Tense Architecture Network »
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Photography is by Filippo Poli.

Here's a project description from Tense Architecture Network:

Residence in Kallitechnoupolis

The residence's view is a slope: a naked attic slope. The site is significantly inclined and is accessed only through its narrow upper side. The declivity of the site faces an equally slanted hill –the predominant point of visual reference. As the residence neighbours with two extrovert residences on both sides, it realises enclosure, concentration of the view and an introvert escalating development of its open spaces towards the east. The opposing landscape of the hill is perceived from a distance.

The inclined prism of the shell follows the natural inclination and descends towards the ground via the intensely oblique cut of its eastern front. The cut opens the residence to the opposed microcosmos: the air, the light, the barberries, the horizontal ridge, the long lonely railing of the opposite side. A swimming pool is comprised in the shell's lowest point, partly in cantilever. At the level of the access an elongated excision of the prism allows for a walled yet unroofed outdoor space that eventually concludes to the open eastern front and the view.

The exterior cortex is constructed by exposed reinforced concrete: the shell is two-coloured. Earthly dark at the outside, lighter in the inside, its colouring is aiming at the maximum possible tension of the shell's introvertness. The geometric austerity of the prism is violently ruptured in three areas: the shell is ultimately found broken, the rupture of its boundaries is performed from within, the remote nature is allowed in. Yet, only as Actio in Distans: only as view.

Project Team: Tilemachos Andrianopoulos, Kostas Mavros, Nestoras Kanellos
Structural design: Athanasios Kontizas