An invitation was received from the ‘muhtar’ – the chief authority person – of a small village in Thrace, namely Dagyenice, to build an experimental shading structure with a group of interns. The group of 15 students, villagers and whoever volunteered, built a timber structure for use of villagers and visitors near the cafe house where people spend most of their free time. It was a design-build process in the Summer of 2003. The process involved settling in the existing school building, listening to the memoirs and stories of village history by the elder residents at the village square. Meetings at the square, near the river and the cafe house were attended by many including all interested in the process and the black dog of the village. Students levelled the site with hand tools. Villagers carried the logs to the site on tractors. The sized and cut timber columns positioned, raised, lowered, secured and finished. Today, all residents enjoy sitting under it drinking tea or coffee, or chat…