A summer home by ANAKTAE rooted in land and memory
The kalyva — a hut in name, but something much more enduring in spirit.
An elemental form. A shelter reduced to its essentials.
It recalls an older way of living; simple, close to the land, shaped by rhythm and need. Built to serve. This is architecture as presence, not display. A space shaped by care, by quiet gestures, by what’s truly necessary.
For the modern wanderer, the kalyva offers retreat. A pause. A return to balance with nature, with time, with the self. Not a monument to the past, but a place that makes space for a more grounded present. A quiet refuge for a quieter way of being.
In the rural valley of Merichas, on the island of Kythnos, three modest stone structures stand as silent traces of that once self-sustaining way of life. Built in the late 19th century using dry-stone walling (ξερολιθιά), they reflect a construction method shaped by necessity, stones placed by hand, without mortar, guided only by skill and local knowledge.
This small complex once served as a family’s summer home. During the winters, they lived in nearby Dryopida; summers were spent here, working the land. Vines were cultivated, grapes harvested and pressed in the patitiri, a small wine press that remains intact.
Each structure had its role. One sheltered the family. Another — the mantra — housed the animals. The third was used to store tools and produce. Together, they formed a compact ecosystem of shared living, where people, animals and the land coexisted in a balanced, interdependent rhythm.
ANAKTAE’s approach goes beyond reconstruction. It is an act of quiet listening. To the land, the materials, and the memory embedded in the space. The intervention is minimal, almost invisible. Nothing is added without need. Nothing is restored without purpose. There is no grid connection, save for what’s essential. Water is drawn from the well. Electricity powers a single fridge. Life unfolds with the sun and fades with the dark. No screens, no signals, just silence. The house and land, form a self-contained world, a soft bubble of stillness in contrast to the acceleration of everyday life.
The original structure and its new companions form a coherent whole, a composition of terraced platforms, retaining walls, and simple volumes. Living unfolds horizontally, across open and enclosed spaces, public and private moments scattered like thoughts across the slope.
Structural repairs were made with intention: the dry-stone walls stabilized, native plants introduced, simple timber frames built for shade and shelter. The house itself follows the slope of the ground like a sculpted volume, shaped by the terrain.
Inside, ancestral furniture and found objects return to their place. Materials and colours are rooted in the island; stone, lime, wood.
The land gives fruit and vegetables; the home gives rhythm and rest.
Here, time expands. Distance from the noise of the world becomes a form of clarity. And yet, even as we seek to return, we recognize that true return is no longer possible.
The kalyva, this ancient gesture of living, now lives within the imagination, as a psychic relic, an emotional imprint that surfaces against the indifference of contemporary life.
Its presence is fragile but enduring. A memory of what it meant — and still means — to dwell with purpose, with humility, and in tune with the earth.
Beyond the stone, nature offers its own architecture: swaying reeds, tall trees, and soft sounds that create a living perimeter, a moving threshold between solitude and the world.
