The practice
Metopo is an architecture practice of nine people in Chania, founded in 2008 by Eleni Kalogeraki and Andreas Manousakis. We design houses, repair old buildings, and build small public buildings in the west of Crete, most of them within an hour's drive of the office.
We are not interested in a style. We are interested in how a building meets the climate of this island: the long hot afternoons, the north wind, the winter storms, the stone and lime that are already here. Our buildings are quiet, and they are measured, afterwards, to see whether they work.
How we work
Six habits. None of them is new; most of them are older than the buildings we repair.
Build with the climate
Thick walls, deep shade, cross-ventilation, small windows to the north and shaded ones to the south. We design so that a house in western Crete does not need air conditioning, and we measure afterwards to see if it worked.
Repair before replace
The greenest building is usually the one already standing. We repair stone in lime, keep what can be kept, and replace only what has truly failed, to the shape it had.
Measure first
Every project begins with a measured survey, by hand as well as by instrument. You understand a wall only after you have drawn every stone of it.
Visit at every hour
Before we draw anything, two of us spend a day on the site: early morning, noon, late afternoon, last light. Where the shade falls, where the wind comes from, what you hear.
Models made by hand
Card, basswood, plaster and cork, in the workshop at the back of the warehouse. A model shows you what you forgot to draw, and it is how clients decide.
Drawings published
We publish the plans and sections of our buildings, and what went wrong. Other architects in Crete have used our details; we have used theirs.
The building we work in
The office is the middle one of three vaulted warehouses on Akti Enoseos, built by the Venetians around 1590 to store timber for the galleys. Each is a single barrel vault, thirty-two metres long and seven and a half wide, with walls a metre thick and one great arch facing the harbour.
When we took it in 2011 it was a boat repair shed with a concrete floor and no windows. We spent three winters of weekends taking the concrete off, repointing the vault in lime and making a glass screen for the arch, from oak, with the joiner who later built the timber bay on Theotokopoulou Street.
It is the best lesson in climate we know. In August, with the doors open to the harbour, it is the coolest room in Chania; in January the stone holds the warmth of the afternoon until the evening. We work at one long table down the middle, with the models on shelves along the walls and the workshop at the back.
The people
9 of us. Everyone draws, everyone goes to site, and everyone makes models on Fridays.
Eleni Kalogeraki
Founding partner, since 2008. Trained at Faculty of Architecture, Porto.
Born in Chania in 1976. She studied in Porto and stayed six years, drawing houses and restorations in the north of Portugal, and came home in 2007 with the conviction that you understand a building only after you have measured it by hand. She leads the restorations and every survey, and teaches a survey workshop each spring.
Looks after Restorations, surveys, the harbour pavilion
Andreas Manousakis
Founding partner, since 2008. Trained at Delft University of Technology.
Born in Heraklion in 1974. He studied building technology in Delft and spent eight years in Rotterdam working on façades and climate, mostly for buildings with no windows that open. He came back to design the opposite. He leads the houses and public buildings, and anything to do with air, heat and shade.
Looks after Houses, public buildings, climate
Sofia Daskalaki
Associate, restoration, since 2012
Sofia has drawn more Venetian façades than anyone we know. She runs the restoration projects from survey to the last lime coat, and deals with the antiquities service, patiently.
Yiorgos Fragiadakis
Architect, construction, since 2014
A builder's son from Vamos. Yiorgos spends two days a week on site and knows what every detail costs before it is drawn. Builders call him first.
Katerina Lionaki
Architect, public buildings, since 2016
Katerina runs the market hall in Kissamos and every permit application in the office. She can tell you how long the planning office will take, and she is usually right.
Irini Sfakianaki
Architect, landscape, since 2017
Irini grew up in Anopoli and came back to rebuild its terraces. She designs the ground around every building: walls, paths, gardens and where the rain goes.
Dimitris Saridakis
Architect, drawings, since 2018
Dimitris keeps the office's drawings in order: line weights, title blocks, the way a plan is numbered. Every drawing that leaves the office has passed across his desk.
Stelios Karatzis
Model maker, since 2010
Stelios trained as a cabinet-maker and has made every model in the office since 2010, about three hundred of them, in card, basswood, plaster and cork. On Friday afternoons the whole office makes models with him.
Anna Petraki
Office manager, since 2009
Anna has run the office since its second year: fees, contracts, the calendar, and the long table at lunch. She answers the phone and knows where every project is.
Since 2008, briefly
- 2008
Eleni Kalogeraki and Andreas Manousakis open the office in two rooms in Halepa, with one client and a borrowed plotter.
- 2009
Anna Petraki joins. The first house, in Kefalas, is finished the following year.
- 2011
The office moves into a sixteenth-century warehouse on the harbour and spends three winters of weekends repairing it.
- 2014
The first public building: the municipality of Apokoronas asks for four classrooms at Vamos.
- 2016
Work starts on the terraces at Anopoli, four summers on a hillside with two masons and 140 volunteers.
- 2021
The house on Theotokopoulou Street wins the prize for repair at the Heraklion Architecture Days.
- 2025
The office publishes its book, The Shaded House, and starts casting the vaults of the market hall at Kissamos.
- 2026
Nine people, seven projects on the boards, one on the harbour wall waiting for another chance.
Awards and press
Kept here because clients ask. The drawings are a better guide.
Awards
- 2024
Aegean Prize for Architecture, houses
Aegean Architecture Foundation, for the House at Kalami
First prize in the houses category.
- 2024
Second prize, harbour pavilion competition
Municipality of Chania, for the Harbour pavilion, Chania
Of 46 entries. The jury called it the most modest and the most precise.
- 2023
Cretan Building Awards, places of work
Cretan Building Awards, for the Winery at Voukolies
- 2022
Commendation, Mediterranean Stone Awards
Mediterranean Stone Awards, for the Terraces at Anopoli
- 2021
Prize for repair
Heraklion Architecture Days, for the House on Theotokopoulou Street
Publications
- 2025
The Shaded House: notes on building in western Crete
Metopo, 192 pages, in Greek and English
Our book: twelve buildings, their drawings, and what we got wrong.
- 2023
The house around a tree
Kelyfos quarterly, issue 41, for the House at Kalami
- 2020
A school for shade
Stone and Lime journal, for the Primary school at Vamos
Lectures
- 2025
Repair before replace
School of Architecture, Chania
- 2023
The cellar in the hill
Thessaloniki Architecture Week, for the Winery at Voukolies
Exhibitions
- 2026
Models, 2008 to 2026
Neorio Gallery, Chania
Eighty of the office's models, May to June 2026.
- 2019
Measured by hand: surveys of old Chania
Neorio Gallery, Chania, for the House on Theotokopoulou Street