A core and around it a single, open space that is divided by this core: this description would also apply to House Farnsworth by Mies van der Rohe. But while there the element placed in it, as it were, has a predominantly serving function, in Fürstenaubruck the solid core, knitted in wood, is central and load-bearing in every respect. The whole house develops out of it. It consists of a wall that is bent many times, or more precisely: of numerous wall pieces, each of which is entangled into each other at right angles, as the nature of this construction method requires and is necessary for its stability. The niches formed in this way provide different areas and functions: a kitchen, a living room with an open dining area and an almost cave-like retreat area, an entrance with wardrobe, a library with workstations that leads over both floors, and two sleeping areas with dedicated bathrooms. Where necessary, these areas can be separated with sliding doors, and certain parts of the solid wood core extend to the outer wall, where they sometimes - almost - dissolve into free-standing knitted construction columns.
This sculpturally shaped backbone of solid wood supports the ceilings - above the ground floor it is made of concrete and contains, among other things, a hypocaust heating system fed by the wood stove and the roof, while the outer wall envelops the whole as a detached, self-supporting stud construction. From the outside, this becomes visible in that the symmetrical roof, which is rectangular in plan, emancipates itself from the outer wall, which deviates so imperceptibly from the right angle that it stands centrally above the access side, but acentrically over the back. It is also noticeable through the materiality. Covered by a brown lime plaster, which has also been coated with pigmented linseed oil, the slightly shiny wall on the outside resembles a brittle shell or the bark of a tree. Inside, it is clad in fabric or, in the living room, in a soft clay plaster, which makes the heavy solidity of the layered wooden beams of the core all the stronger.
In the case of the house in Fürstenaubruck, Gion Caminada has completely detached the knitted construction from traditional house typologies and thus opened up new perspectives for it. It expands the structural possibilities of solid timber construction, in particular by inserting the concrete slab, and exploits it to its limits. In this way, he uses the plasticity and atmospheric power of this construction method to create rich, dense spaces. In doing so, he remains true to his themes, as well as in the fact that he naturally also tailors this house precisely to the location with its placement, its shape and its character. (which, however, is not to be mentioned here for once). His experience and the clarity of the fundamental decisions allow him to take great liberties in the individual. For example, where the outer wall is plastically deformed, against its "nature" as a shell, but all the more to the advantage of the entrance, where inside and outside are clamped in this way and, moreover, the central theme of the interior is already announced from the entrance. This contributes significantly to the richness of this architecture, which lacks everything rigid, all too perfect and which makes it all the more lively and suitable for life.
Source: Martin Tschanz for Werk, Bauen + Wohnen
Photos: Lucia Degonda
