Precise optics ii, Mykonos

Architectural Design | Dimitri Tsigos

Project Designer | Marina Karamali

Designers | Kate Karagianni, Christina Tsakiri

Construction Management | Omniview

Current state | Completed

In 1992, the sculptor Anish Kapoor addressed with his sculpture ” when I am pregnant ” the geometric relationship between a plain white wall and a double curved form. The iconic piece of art has been inspiring architects ever since, introducing the capability for a typical wall to seamlessly evolve to a more elaborate shape, while familiarizing the public with the aesthetics of such a transition.

Anyone who has visited Mykonos has probably been seduced by an aesthetic of a similar genre: due to indigenous techniques and traditional methodologies of construction, one sees geometric volumes that smoothly morph into one another in a very similar way Anish’s sphere morphs on to the wall.

Soon the collaboration with our client gave birth to the vision to develop a design technique that respects and acknowledges the traditional mykonean environment and blends harmoniously into it, but at the same time is contemporary enough to be an appropriate display environment for the haute – couture, cutting edge merchandise the Precise Optics brand is known for. Moreover, we wanted a design that would allude to the aesthetic of the initial Precise Optics store that was built in 2009, and would capitalize on the brand awareness the company has built ever since.

We decided to engineer a new generation of pregnant wall. One that is based on the same operation with Anish’s beautiful work of art, but morphs into forms that are more complex and more functional, and are suitable for the exhibition of glasses and for all the other programs that are associated with the function of the store.

The result was one that we believe is an uncompromising response to the design concept. An environment that is unmistakably referential to the mykonean aesthetic, highly coherent to indigenous construction trends, but at the same time an intrepid showcase of the advanced cutting edge morphologies that modern architecture is made of.