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MetopoArchitects, Chania

MT 14.01

Primary school at Vamos

Four classrooms and a covered yard for a village school, beside the stone school of 1894, which became the library and hall.

Place
Vamos, Apokoronas, Chania
Status
Built
Design and build
2014 to 2019
Kind
Public building
Floor area
780 m²
Site
4,200 m²
Client
Municipality of Apokoronas
Break time under the covered yard, with the old school at the end.
Fig. 1Break time under the covered yard, with the old school at the end.

The site

The edge of the village, where the houses stop and the olive groves begin. The old school is a single stone room with tall windows, built by the village in 1894 and still the most loved building in Vamos. Behind it, a yard of beaten earth and a plane tree that everyone has climbed.

The brief

Room for 96 children, and a place to play when it is too hot or too wet to be outside.

Drawings

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

Ground floor plan of Primary school at Vamos, 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. The school of 1894, now the library and hall
  2. Classroom
  3. Classroom
  4. Classroom
  5. Classroom
  6. Staff room
  7. Covered yard
  8. Vegetable beds
South elevation of Primary school at Vamos, drawn in line

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2South elevationDrawing A-301, scale bar in metres
Painted axonometric of Primary school at Vamos, lit for a summer afternoon, with its shadows

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3AxonometricDrawing A-001
Site plan of Primary school at Vamos: roofs, shadows, contours and the boundary

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4Site planDrawing A-000, scale bar in metres

The project

The municipality had a standard design for four classrooms. We asked to see the children first. We spent a week in the old school with them, in May and again in December, and what we learnt was simple: they need shade in the yard more than they need anything inside.

So the covered yard came first. It is a zinc roof on chestnut posts, seven metres deep and fifty long, between the old school and the new wing. It is where the children wait, play, eat and shelter, and on summer evenings the village uses it for dances.

The new classrooms are a single row facing south, with deep window reveals and a planted roof. Each one has a clerestory to the north, which gives the even light that teachers ask for and lets the warm air out at the top. The old school, cleaned and repaired, is now the library and the hall.

The building cost less per square metre than the standard design. Most of the saving came from not needing air conditioning.

The model we took to the village council, with the plane tree made from a sponge.
Fig. 2The model we took to the village council, with the plane tree made from a sponge.
A classroom on a January morning, with the White Mountains in the window.
Fig. 3A classroom on a January morning, with the White Mountains in the window.

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 Primary school at Vamos, 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. The covered yard: a zinc roof on chestnut posts, seven metres deep, for June at noon and for rain.

  2. The planted roof: twenty centimetres of soil keep the classrooms cool until the end of the school year.

  3. Clerestory windows to the north give even light for drawing and let warm air out at the top.

  4. The yard is paved over gravel, so the rain goes back into the ground.

Materials

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

  • Lime render

    Inside and out, on insulated brick

  • Chestnut

    Posts of the covered yard and the classroom ceilings

  • Zinc

    Roof of the covered yard

  • Rubble stone

    Garden walls, from the demolished outbuildings

Credits

Metopo

  • Andreas Manousakis, partner in charge
  • Katerina Lionaki
  • Yiorgos Fragiadakis, site
  • Irini Sfakianaki, yard and garden

With

  • Structure: Petros Zervoudakis, civil engineer
  • Services: Lefteris Chalkiadakis, mechanical engineer
  • Builder: Apokoronas Construction, by public tender

Facts

  • Project MT 14.01, 2014 to 2019
  • Construction cost €1,420 per m², 2018 prices
  • Drawings, models and pictures by Metopo

Awards and press

  • Publication, 2020. A school for shade, Stone and Lime journal