11 – 2016

Timber Constructions

Timber frames, multi-layer boards, CNC-milled laminated timber beams—one could, in short, characterise the construction-related evolution of timber building over the past 25 years in this way. In the course of this development the way in which timber is utilised as a material has undergone a fundamental transformation from the cut-to-size timber beam to elements made from left-over wood. Whereas in panel building systems a solid timber frame is still fitted with planks on the assembly table, multilayer panels or laminated timber beam, like many almost homogeneous materials, can be cut to size by a CNC mill. In 1993 the architects Marcel Meili and Markus Peter presented timber frame building in this journal (wbw 11 – 1993) in the form of an experimental project that demonstrated a possible architectural direction; less than ten years later this was followed by Andrea Deplazes (in wbw 1/2 – 2001) with an essay on prefabrication technology and a small house that, like a cardboard model, is built out of panels. In the same issue Anton Kaufmann and Hermann Blumer as well as Hermann Kaufmann discussed the possibilities for construction offered by new production technology. All three, timber construction engineers and architect, appear again in the current issue with work of their own—suggesting strongly that timber building is once more poised on the threshold of a technological leap forward. The innovation goes in different directions. For instance constructions strengthened with steel or concrete allow timber building to perform better as well as making possible spans close to those that can be achieved with steel. A computer-based assembly technology and well worked-out delivery chains facilitate the production and fitting of complex prefabricated building parts which, in terms of expression and technical sophistication, resemble those of the traditional craft of carpentry—and make possible an architecture that is tectonic in the true meaning of the word (tekton in Greek means carpenter or wood-worker). Thanks to the element and modular building systems developed by large timber building firms building with wood is now crossing the threshold to becoming a mass phenomenon: wood has become an industrially produced and traded material. And yet, like brick, it has preserved a very direct kind of expression, inside and outside: enhanced by handcraft, assembled tectonically or composed of large, abstract surfaces.