This project presentation was created in cooperation with BAUMEISTER.
Play Den
Round things are rare in architecture, especially in timber construction with its rod or at best plate tectonics. This is why this building surprises with a dense sequence of wooden segmental arched roofs. What is reminiscent of Roman longhouses, a market hall or greenhouses in terms of building type serves here as a homely labyrinthine daycare center with an attached civic center.
The design of the newly created Lahr Bürgerpark takes up traces of a Roman settlement at this point. Their stripe structure also inspired Stefanie and Stephan Eberding to create their award-winning competition entry for a five-group daycare center, in which a gym and meeting room for the adjacent neighborhood was also to be integrated. The result was a small-scale, serial house made of wood. The architects did not want to "create an urban dominant" at this location, but to strengthen the theme of the surrounding park.
Order in wooden arches
Dividing daycare centers into small, manageable units is also considered child-friendly. However, implementing such a mini-land in wood is not easy under today's cost and energy-saving conditions. However, the Eberdings succeeded in developing an innovative and at the same time historically familiar design for this purpose.
The seven strips, between 3.50 and 7.50 metres wide, cover the entire 30 by 70 metre construction site like a carpet, which is interrupted only in two places by a courtyard. There are three sizes of spatial modules to match the space programme, each of which is marked by four columns and spanned by laminated timber arched trusses. On top of it sit partially prefabricated ceiling elements with visible, rather mighty rafters. In the competition, there was an even more elegant monolithic wood surface. Unfortunately, the verge plates are also "un-round" in the design. The architects speak of enormous cost pressure, but also emphasize the robust workshop character of their work: "We like a rough construction method."
However, the fundamental objection remains that barrel vaults come from solid construction. To bend wood corresponds to not its linear structure. Nevertheless, the combination of form and material results in an appropriate solution, even of the critical nodes: "It was important to us to create a centering in terms of space. The play of different spans makes the rooms unmistakable," explains Stephan Eberding. In wood, the completely untreated structure is completely recyclable.
The children like the cave-like nature of the rooms. There is even room for a second level under the vault of the group rooms. In the middle under the arch, the sound is amplified, but that's the only thing that bothers the kindergarten teachers. Since the very deep floor plan receives daylight almost exclusively from the south, the wide multifunctional central zone remains somewhat dim. More skylights and the originally planned mullion-transom glazing of the courtyard sides would have remedied this.
The atrium at the entrance, however, forms an even stronger, almost oriental focus. It connects the daycare center with the neighboring small civic center. The gymnasium is also accessible from both sides. Such multiple use, which enlivens the building all day long, should be more common. For the adjacent high-rise district, which has a tendency to become a social hotspot, this offer is definitely a benefit.
Source: BM 12/20 - Building with wood part 3
Photos: Zooey Braun
