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MetopoArchitects, Chania

MT 24.06

Harbour pavilion, Chania

A timber roof on slender columns over the harbour mole: shade for waiting, and nothing in the way of the lighthouse. Second prize.

Place
Venetian harbour, Chania
Status
Competition
Period
2024
Kind
Public building
Floor area
216 m²
Sheet
5 of 8
Client
Open competition held by the Municipality of Chania
Competition drawing: the pavilion in the evening, looking west along the mole.
Fig. 1Competition drawing: the pavilion in the evening, looking west along the mole.

The site

The eastern mole of the Venetian harbour, where the day boats to the islands leave. Stone quays, water on three sides, the lighthouse four hundred metres away and, in August, forty thousand people a day walking past.

The brief

A shaded place on the harbour for waiting and meeting, with a small ticket office, and no obstruction of the view to the lighthouse.

Drawings

Every drawing is at the scale on its bar. The numbers on the plan match the list beside it.

Ground floor plan of Harbour pavilion, Chania, with numbered rooms and the line of section A

Slide the drawing sideways to see all of it.

1Ground floor planDrawing A-101, scale bar in metres

Rooms

  1. Ticket kiosk
  2. Shaded platform with stone benches
  3. The caique moorings
Painted axonometric of Harbour pavilion, Chania, competition drawing, with its shadows

Slide the drawing sideways to see all of it.

2AxonometricDrawing A-001
Site plan of Harbour pavilion, Chania: roofs, shadows, contours and the boundary

Slide the drawing sideways to see all of it.

3Site planDrawing A-000, scale bar in metres

The project

Most entries built something. We tried to build as little as possible: one flat timber roof, 24 by 10 metres, on ten steel columns as thin as the masts of the caiques moored alongside. Under it, stone benches and a small stone kiosk for tickets and water.

The roof is 3.7 metres up, low enough to shade the whole platform from ten in the morning until five, and high enough that from the old town you look under it at the lighthouse.

The jury gave us second prize and wrote that the scheme was the most modest and the most precise. We would have liked to build it.

The competition model at 1:100. The columns are brass rod.
Fig. 2The competition model at 1:100. The columns are brass rod.
Under the roof at noon, looking towards the lighthouse.
Fig. 3Under the roof at noon, looking towards the lighthouse.

Sun, shade and air

Section A, drawing A-201. The sun is shown at noon on the longest and the shortest day, 78 and 31 degrees above the horizon in Chania; the blue dashes are the way the air moves.

Section through Harbour pavilion, Chania, with the sun at noon in June and December and the paths of the air

Slide the drawing sideways to see all of it.

  1. A timber roof 3.7 metres up and nearly ten metres deep: shade for the whole platform from ten until five in summer.

  2. Stone benches, 45 centimetres high, warm in the evening and cool in the morning.

  3. Open to the water on the south and to the harbour on the north: the roof never meets a wall.

Materials

Samples from the long table in the office. Each one comes from the site or from within a day's drive of it.

  • Ammoudaki sandstone

    Kiosk and benches, the stone of the harbour walls

  • Chestnut

    The soffit of the roof

  • Zinc

    The top of the roof, with a standing seam

Credits

Metopo

  • Eleni Kalogeraki, partner in charge
  • Dimitris Saridakis
  • Irini Sfakianaki
  • Stelios Karatzis, models

With

  • Structure: Anthi Mavraki, civil engineer

Facts

  • Project MT 24.06, 2024
  • Drawings, models and pictures by Metopo

Awards and press

  • Award, 2024. Second prize, harbour pavilion competition, Municipality of Chania