Aristides Dallas Architects has been named a winner at the 2026 Architizer A+Awards in the Unbuilt Hospitality category for Shared Ground – A Contemporary Reading of the Greek Village, a hospitality proposal that reinterprets the spatial intelligence of traditional Greek settlements through a contemporary architectural language.

The recognition follows the studio’s 2025 Architizer A+Award as Best Local Firm, marking a second consecutive distinction from one of the world’s leading architectural awards programs and reinforcing the practice’s ongoing commitment to contextual architecture and hospitality design.

The project asks a simple question: what can contemporary hospitality learn from the spatial intelligence of historic Greek settlements?

Rather than reproducing traditional Cycladic forms, Shared Ground investigates the underlying principles that allowed historic villages to evolve over centuries. The proposal draws from their gradual growth, spatial diversity and collective character, translating these qualities into a contemporary hospitality environment where architecture emerges from the landscape instead of being imposed upon it.

The masterplan is organized as a dispersed settlement that follows the site’s natural topography. Buildings are carefully positioned and rotated according to the terrain, while curved circulation paths respond to existing contours, allowing the development to integrate naturally with its surroundings. The resulting composition avoids repetition, creating a village-like fabric defined by variation, movement and landscape.

Accommodation units are grouped into three residential typologies and organized into small neighbourhood clusters around shared outdoor spaces. Swimming pools, seating areas, dining terraces and communal gathering spaces encourage social interaction while preserving the privacy and individuality of each residence. At the centre of the development, an elevated public square accommodates the main restaurant, café and small retail spaces, offering a contemporary interpretation of the traditional village square.

The project reflects Aristides Dallas Architects’ broader architectural philosophy, which approaches hospitality as the design of relationships between landscape, movement, privacy and collective experience. Rather than treating buildings as isolated objects, the studio explores how architecture can generate places that feel rooted in their environment and evolve naturally from local context.

“We were never interested in recreating the image of a Greek village. What interested us was understanding the intelligence behind it: how it grows, how it creates community, how it negotiates landscape and how it allows people to belong. Shared Ground is our attempt to translate these principles into a contemporary hospitality environment.”

Aristides Dallas, Founder, Aristides Dallas Architects

Shared Ground continues the studio’s ongoing research into hospitality architecture shaped by landscape, collective living and the cultural identity of the Mediterranean.