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MetopoArchitects, Chania

MT 16.03

Terraces at Anopoli

1.2 kilometres of dry-stone terrace walls rebuilt by hand, a threshing floor and a stone shelter, at the foot of the White Mountains.

Place
Anopoli, Sfakia, Chania
Status
Built
Design and build
2016 to 2020
Kind
Landscape
Area of terraces
26,000 m²
Sheet
8 of 8
Client
Eleven families who own the terraces, and the village council
The rebuilt terraces in April, with the White Mountains still under snow.
Fig. 1The rebuilt terraces in April, with the White Mountains still under snow.

The site

A hillside of olive terraces above the plateau of Anopoli, 600 metres up, built in the nineteenth century and left when the young people went to the towns. By 2015 a third of the walls had fallen after winter storms, taking the soil and the trees with them.

The brief

Rebuild the fallen walls so that the olives can be tended again, and teach the next generation how.

Drawings

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

Ground floor plan of Terraces at Anopoli, 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. Stone shelter
  2. Threshing floor
  3. Olive terraces
  4. The path up from the village
Painted axonometric of Terraces at Anopoli, lit for a summer afternoon, with its shadows

Slide the drawing sideways to see all of it.

2AxonometricDrawing A-001
Site plan of Terraces at Anopoli: roofs, shadows, contours and the boundary

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3Site planDrawing A-000, scale bar in metres

The project

This was the first project where we drew less than we built. Irini and Andreas surveyed every wall, gave each one a number and a condition, and then spent four summers on the hillside with two old masons from the village and whoever else turned up: owners, their children, students, and one retired judge from Athens.

A dry-stone wall has no mortar. It stands because each stone is heavier than what pushes it, because the face leans back into the hill, and because water can pass straight through. The walls that fell had been patched with cement, which dammed the water behind them until they burst.

We rebuilt 1.2 kilometres of wall in the old way, repaired the threshing floor at the top, and re-roofed the stone shelter beside it with earth over reeds. The masons wrote the method down with us; it is now a small book that the village gives away.

The hillside at 1:200, made for the village meeting where the owners agreed.
Fig. 2The hillside at 1:200, made for the village meeting where the owners agreed.
Along the second terrace in the late afternoon.
Fig. 3Along the second terrace in the late afternoon.

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 Terraces at Anopoli, 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. Walls laid dry, leaning back one in six. There is no mortar, so water passes straight through.

  2. Behind each wall, forty centimetres of broken stone drains the terrace after the winter storms.

  3. The stone shelter is roofed again with earth over reeds, as it was built in 1880.

Materials

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

  • Rubble stone

    Every stone from the fallen walls, reused

  • Limestone

    Coping stones and the edge of the threshing floor

  • Chestnut

    The beams of the shelter roof

Credits

Metopo

  • Irini Sfakianaki, project architect
  • Andreas Manousakis, partner in charge
  • with the masons Kostis and Manousos Daskalakis

With

  • Funding: the village council and a regional rural programme
  • Volunteers: 140 people over four summers

Facts

  • Project MT 16.03, 2016 to 2020
  • Construction cost €96 per metre of wall, 2019 prices
  • Drawings, models and pictures by Metopo

Awards and press

  • Award, 2022. Commendation, Mediterranean Stone Awards, Mediterranean Stone Awards