Esperides Beach Hotel

Faliraki, a seaside town on the east coast of Rhodes, is known for its long sandy beach and numerous bays to the south, with a clear emerald sea that calls the Caribbean to mind. But Faliraki is also famous as the centre of the island’s nightlife, a place where night and day run into each other without a break. 

It is also the location for the Esperides Beach Hotel, a resort offering every comfort and a personalised experience for every guest, whether they’re looking for exciting entertainment or tranquillity and wellness. 

Architect Dimitris Papanastasiou has recently redesigned the entire sublevel of the hotel, a large area which the hotel wanted to transform into a multi-purpose space with mini markets and food halls, a public space imbued with the atmosphere of an international airport. The designer created an evocative environment in which the diverse styles characteristic of such a varied location bond together to form a cohesive multicultural whole.  Characterised by a diversity of textures which creates a highly impactful visual effect, the space maintains stylistic cohesion by using a single material – Marazzi porcelain stoneware – in an eclectic and yet harmonious mix of collections 

Centre stage is taken by the elegant Allmarble collection, which reproduces the veining of the most exclusive marbles in its Golden White, Elegant Black and Pulpis variants, characterising the welcome area and reflecting the circular movement of the table.

The adjacent veranda and corridors are floored in the perfect stone grain and variably shaded background tones of Mystone Gris Fleury, featuring the Premium High Performance technology, in the Nero and Taupe colours, creating a perfect synergy with the high-technology Ecolabel-certified SistemT Graniti Grigio Chiaro porcelain stoneware (in the 30x30 cm size), and the elegant softer wood-effect finish of Noce Francese (15x120 cm) from Treverkchic. 

The atmosphere of the food halls is made even more pleasing by the use of the Crogiolo collection. The designer has chosen the colours of the collections to match the foods offered by the various stalls – Zellige Bosco for the salad stalls, Lume Blue for the seafood stalls, and Zellige Corallo and Lume Musk for the meat stalls and grill area – thus making the ceramic material act as a sort of subliminal signage. It also expresses an uninterrupted artisanal connection between the container (the space and the materials used to furnish it) and its content (the food on offer), in the luminous vibe emitted by the random patterning and colour gradations of the ceramic material (a combination of the 10x10 and 6x24 cm sizes).