The group Boulouki, a traveling laboratory for traditional building techniques, presents the educational action ”Shelters”, 2 parallel laboratories, six days of practice, theory and experimentation, in the mountainous area of Tzoumerka. Specifically, the 2 parallel workshops organized are “adapting the traditional wood oven “in katafygio Melissourgos” and “Introducing the ‘tzumeriotiko’ tree house ” in the shelter of Pramanta and will be held May 1 to 6. The group Boulouki, is an urban non-profit company of five young architects-engineers, who specialize on traditional building techniques.

Our company apart from our participation, we also support the action “Shelters” and specifically the workshop “adapting the traditional wood oven”, offering suitable materials. The workshop we will participate in will take place for the purpose of learning in wood, stone and clay, under the guidance of experienced craftsmen and will involve a total of 28 young engineers, students and people in the field of construction more widely. In addition, the practical training will be accompanied by speeches – lectures open to the public, by prestigious academics including M. Arakadakis from Αuth and E. Chuckanika from NTUA. More specifically, the theme of the workshop concerns the construction of a traditional wood oven, which will be constructed entirely with traditional and natural materials, such as clay, quartz sand, pumice and lime.

Boulouki in the summer of 2018, held the 1st stone building workshop in Plaka Tzoumerka, in collaboration with the municipality of Northern Tzoumerka and the Metsovian centre of interdisciplinary research of NTUA, under the auspices of the region of Epirus, which was very successful and widely accepted.

As they say on their website, https://en.boulouki.org/ the group is called the Mob, as it is a word that refers to the masons who moved around from place to place in search of work, spreading the traditional forms and furthering their knowledge. Dealing with the study of traditional building techniques, the issues of protection of cultural heritage, renewal and enhancement of the cultural heritage, as well as the critical investigation of the strategies unfold in these fields. Their actions include conducting research, organizing workshops, conferences, and formal actions, the promotion of projects, in cooperation with the local communities and their organizations.

We are very happy and honored to participate and support such actions, which contribute to the promotion, revival and rescue of the old traditional building techniques!