Big house progress

Big House day 3

Big house day 4

Big house day 5

Big house day 8

Big house day 9

Camping in winter

Camping is still going on during winter. Even in November, with the temperature going up to 20 degrees during the day and not under 15 the coldest night, Jonathan and Ronan mostly and Nico and me, we are still sleeping there, cooking and making a fire at night to warm up.
Its also amazing how green everything is turning again and its wonderfull every morning to get up with the sunrise! And the noise of the workers!

We've got company!!!

Four female little doggies just arrived under our plot one day! Of course someone abandoned them there to get rid of them, thinking maybe that we would like to keep them.... Well what to do with 4 dogs??? Fortunately George and Stefanos, two of the stone workers with a bit of pursuasion they got one each. Then we started to like having them around, they could be also of some use at the plot, like chasing the goats away!! So we kept the other two....

Social Media

We decided, after some discussions, to contribute also to the social media sites:

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tinos-eco-lodge/1460675304203102 
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111036111081628064904/posts

 Google+
 

Autum Timelapse of construction

filmed with:Gopro3
filmed by Nicolas Bedau
edited by Nicolas Bedau, Marilia Kalouli, Ronan Lewis
Musik: Bmccosa License: CC

The small house 45m2 was up in 11 days!

The small house as you see it, without the roof, was finished in 11 days. The time span was amazing. In this speed we managed to make all the necessary preparation for electrical installation, plugs and switches, and on the spot decide were to make shelves inside the wall.The stairs also connecting the small house to the Utility were made really nice and comfortable to walk on by the two workers from Agapi.

The pig

After 3 weeks the stone walls of the Utility house and the small house are ready! Time for a small celebration. George Clooney from Albania killed the pig, Stefanos and Petros brought their own homemade wine from Agapi and the fire is on!!! The pig was delicious!!!and the wine sweet, the kitchen has moved inside the valley and everyone really enjoyed it. The next one will be the wild goat.

Stone building has started!

The small house 1st day of building.

The most fascinating phase has started. The stone builders of "Xatzis" firm were chosen between several different offers. We started with the utility house to check their technique and make adjustments.  7 workers have come and in 6 days the Utility house was up! They are so fast that it was difficult to keep pace with them and some things were missed!  Read in the construction page more details about foundation waterproofing, drainage walls and electrical installation.

The utility house was up in 6 days!

Concrete bloody concrete

After one month preparation the  big moment has arrived! All foundations were ironed, tubes were placed and fixed real tight in position, electrical installations also, final leveling was adjusted and the concrete is poored. We were really anxious that the tubes would not move from the concrete force and luckily everything went well! 10 concrete trucks arrived and brought a total of 66 cubic meters of concrete all the way from Tinos to Potamia / Akeratos.

I have to say that concrete is not our favorable material, but license is not given for rock foundations anymore for new houses, and the cistern could not be constructed otherwise. However, the stone stables that are already there since 1955 and before will be repaired as they are, keeping all the traditional methods and techniques!

The cistern of 10 x 5 x 3 meters high was the most demanding. First the floor had to be filled in and after the walls. Trucks were coming loaded one after the other, a total of 40 cubic meters were thrown in there!










             




The concrete is spread evenly and the tubes are covered and they look quite alright!!! The pooring was done very carefully not to put pressure directly on the tubes and hopefully the 5 degree slopes have stayed in place...

Vidos and Nikos are trying out the helicopter machine! The wings make the surface smooth and even, covering small holes, deleting bumps and if you know exactly how to do it you could have a ready floor in the end! We will try to achieve that by the time we reach the cistern roof which is going to be the exterior veranda of the big house. In the meantime we are practising...

Time lapse of construction

filmed with:Gopro2
filmed by Rafael Krause, Nicolas Bedau
edited by Rafael Krause, Nicolas Bedau, Gerard Cañadas
Musik: See You Later by Pitx featuring Fireproof Babies, Bmccosar, License: CC

The construction site is on

Yes, finally we got most of the paperwork done and started on the 27.7.14 the construction on site!!
We decided to move into tents on the plot in order to get a better impression of the work and of course to make the 6:30 morning shift easier.
So after the first weeks here are some impressions on what we are doing and how it looks like.
The first thing to start with was the excavation for the foundations of the two houses, utility house and cistern .....a lot of rock, a lot of dirt and a big mess.
While the big machines did their job we started fixing some of the broken dry stone walls, although a back breaking job, it gives direct satisfaction caused by immediate result.
After the first excavation the molds for the foundation slabs were constructed and the iron was installed.
Through the planning process we had decided to get all installations like fresh water, grey water, black water and electricity into the concrete foundation, so we installed like a million pipes.......
So at the moment the whole for the huge cistern of 100 cubic meters is molded and we had the first official control, everything came out smooth till now.
So greetings to all of you reading this!

Ps: Time-lapse videos of the work are in preparation!

day trip to syros became small holiday

Visitors in March

Final designs of the stone houses

 
Hello everyone! Finally we have our house designs ready for committing to the Architectural committee of Tinos on Friday!!  We have been working hard the whole past month, making  hundreds of changes on the way, taking into consideration your thoughts and comments and we hope we have found a nice solution! Check the Design Process page for close ups of the two houses and leave your comments! We hope you like them!

Plot arrangement

This is a first drawing of the general plot arrangement. Its very difficult to place everything on the right spot! Many things have to be considered: like access to the houses and terraces, entrance and parking space, connections of places, as well as plants and wind direction, as well as all the technical details of water collection and treatment. Then the orientation and the natural phenomena, north face-windy, east side- sea view, west side- sunset light. So still working on it but a first arrangement is presented.

The entrance with the parking is on the right under the big stone stable. From there two separate footpaths lead to the terraces with the houses as well as the middle terrace which leads to the small stone stable which has been transformed to the utility room, with all batteries for solars, water filters, pumps will be gathered. There is a big cistern of 100 m3 constructed at the lower level with a small pergola and an open space above it. This can be used as a common area for morning yoga or other activities. The reedbed which collects all the sewage liquids is constructed on the left upper terrace with a collection tank of the filtered water under it next to the cistern. Solar panels as well as hot water solars are placed on the roofs, as low as possible so not to be visible.
Upper left terraces are planted with trees while their more wind protected and right upper terrace with local vines which crawl on the ground thus are wind tolerant. The middle terrace will become a herb garden with all local species of lavender, thyme, oregano but also wind resistant rosemarine. Oak trees that are growing on the field will be wind protected by stone walls so they can grow straight and hang a hammock underneath! At the old "aloni" which is the round stone construction where they processed the wheat with the animals, a rock cactus garden can be planted. Next to the two stone houses a small fresh herb garden with parsley, basilicum, anise etc will be planted near the kitchen. The big vegetable garden with all kind of tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, courgettes etc will be a little further, not placed yet, but to the left side of the field where it is totally wind protected!

Location map

We just added a interactive google map on the Project page. So you can see where we are....

Design process

Check the new page with all the different designs that we have made so far and tell us which one you prefer!
At the moment we are trying to design the stone buildings that will be constructed. We would like to get some opinions and ideas on the designs examples, from you. So if you are interested give some thoughts and two votes for your favorite in the comments on the blog (its open for all, if you like with name).

The location

The plot is located in the East side of the island,  2,7 km going down from the village Steni to the beaches Santa Margarita and Lychnaftia.

After nearly three years of on going search for a nice piece of land, also affordable, we found this great spot, which contains also 3 very old traditional stables made of stone, and many big old oak trees!! which is amazing for this arid Aegean island. At its west side it almost borders a small river stream with big Platanus trees and other riverside vegetation which makes this place amazingly green and wild.

 direction to the north

direction to the north-west

 

direction to the east

 direction to the south-east

Hallo People,
this Blog will discuss and illustrate the evolution in the design and co working progress of the eco friendly touristic destination Ecolodge Tinos (Greece).
The core subjects of the Blog will have technical character in the field of regenerative energies, recycling of resources and eco friendly building materials. Around the core there will be discussions and ideas about ecology and a group orientated planing and design process.

The Ecolodge team