Houdetsi is a village of Crete in Greece and has a population of 863 inhabitants. It is about a traditional village, that has evolved in recent years as a center of culture for Crete. The picturesque landscape of Crete and the people’s love for traditional music may have been crucial to the settlement of the highly traveled musician and professional Ross Daly in this village. The musician founded “Labyrinth musical workshop” in 2002, with the contribution of the municipality of the wider region. The musical activities as well as the collection of traditional instruments from all over the world are hosted in a traditional stone building with garden. This situation proved catalytic for inspiration and the principle of synthesis.
In recent years, during the musical workshops, was organized the “Houdetsi Festival”, a four-day celebration of music, dance, taste and art, has been established and performed in the village during the summer since 2007. This Festival was supported by the municipality and volunteers without specific accommodations, as a result of its abandonment the year of 2016. Additionally, the old stone building that is called “Labyrinth” hosts the musical workshops and the collection of traditional instruments, due to costly technical problems, the seasonal teaching classes and the inadequacy of teaching facilities with the necessary design for proper acoustics were the guidelines for the creation of the building program. The final project attempted to investigate and improve the existing situation in order to extend the musical activities by creating facilities for group and individual classrooms, for instrument making workshops, for multiple uses-indoor music stage and re-using the existing “labyrinth” building for the administration of workshops. It is a composition of a classical type of building structure around a courtyard that has a self-contained rhythm. As far as the educational part of the building program is concerned, it is refined by the creation of the cafe. According to its design, it contributes to the constitution of the courtyard and to the transition from the garden to the yard (existing-new).
As far as the cultural part is concerned, an olive oil production factory is reused, which is placed in the center core, close to the “Labyrinth” building on the main provincial road. The new use of the building is organized by the exhibition of the traditional instrument of Ross Daly as well as, in a smaller part, two studio recordings in order to promote the musical compositions by the musicians (students and teachers).
The Board:
