The long, single-storey building stands parallel to the street and thus separates the public space from the private outdoor area to the south. The concrete construction with its parallel bulkheads inscribes the logic of the timber construction resting on it into the landscape. Inside and out, the house follows the movement of the topography and thus strengthens the relationship of the interior to the garden.

In the north, all the serving rooms are lined up, creating a buffer to the street. The rooms and common areas are south-facing and offer a view over the old roofs of the village into the cultural landscape of the Bliesgau. The rationally organised floor plan gains spatial complexity due to the arbor in front of it in the south. Benches that span between the supports extend the interior to the outside.

The open attic space can be experienced throughout the house. Partial wooden beam ceilings extend the children's rooms by a play and sleeping level. To the east is the study, which catches the first light of the day with its large round window. The spatial configuration of the common area creates different levels of intimacy, which is further enhanced by the leap in level between the kitchen and the living room. The living area wraps around the large covered terrace, which thus becomes the communicative hub of family life. From here it is only a few steps to the orchard, which seems to interlock with the house as a matter of course.

The highly insulated timber frame construction rests on an elastically bedded floor slab. Bulkheads made of reinforced concrete in the south serve as supports for the arbour. The visible wooden construction saves costs and resources on the one hand by dispensing with additional cladding, and on the other hand is reminiscent of the expression of agricultural functional buildings due to its simple joining. The house is clad in rough-sawn larch formwork, which is treated with silicate greying glaze. The windows, the parquet floor and the wooden terrace are also made of larch. The grey eternit covering of the large roof is the mineral counterpart to the concrete base of the building.

The roof overhang in the south prevents too much heating in summer. When the sun is low in the winter months, the generous glazing enables noticeable solar gains. The north façade, on the other hand, is characterized by its minimal opening component. The house is heated by a heat pump, whose electricity requirements are covered by the photovoltaic system in combination with a battery storage system. If the system becomes inefficient at very low temperatures, a wood-burning stove can also be used for heating.

The project received the "Houses of the Year" award in 2024 and was nominated for the DAM Prize and the BDA Architecture Award Nike in 2025.

Source: Roman Morschett
Photos: Rory Gardiner
Isometrics & parts of the drawings: Estella Felker in the seminar FACADE 4.0

The preparatory work for this project publication was carried out as part of the building construction theory in the seminar FACADE 4.0 at the FATUK of the RPTU Kaiserslautern through a student thesis by Estella Felker.

#holzbau

ETERNIT ridge/burr cap GKK

Eternit - a brand of Etex Germany Exteriors GmbH