041. The excavation

Figure 31. The excavator operator checks his work against the plans from time to time. Figure 32. The trench for the sewer pipes has been dug.

040. Preparation of the construction site

Figure 30. View from the south-west, looking at the excavator sitting on the north part of the land.

A lot of things have happened over the last couple of months but I wanted to wait until the dust settled (so to speak) to do an update. It's high time for it now, as yesterday the ground preparation work started.

We hadn't had the land mowed in months and the ground cover was really quite dense so the first thing that was done was that the sod was turned over using this excavator. I think most of the top layer will be stored on the site, to be used to fill in after the construction ends. The material that is dug out from lower down will have to be transported away and dumped.

037. Design consideration: wall finish

This is a case where we've had a really big change in our opinion, catalyzed by the suggestions of WA. Our original thought was plaster walls painted white (or in shades somewhere between white and grey in some rooms) with a dark industrial-type floor (more about the floor in another post).

WA suggested that this combination is a dime a dozen and that a much better choice for our house would be to leave the wood of the construction elements visible. Our first reaction to this was quite negative as the examples we had seen so far were too rustic and we didn't really like them except maybe in small chalets surrounded by fields of snow and pine trees. This discussion kept coming up and we kept shaking our heads and finally we went to see a house with an application similar to ours. Actually, if I understand it correctly, ours will be one grade higher than what we saw. The manufacturer, Pius Schuler[1], has recently started producing panels with knot-free, A-grade wood on the visible side which is quite smooth and we were pleasantly surprised and agreed that it does look very nice and airy. The company also has a planning service and they're (re)designing the walls for our house right now. I'll put up detailed drawings once the design is decided. Quite possibly the energy performance will be much better than that of the version I had written about before. More on that topic later.

Figure 28. A close up of a AB-grade Pius Schuler panel in spruce and fir. One half of the panel has been treated with a UV protectant to prevent darkening. Figure 29. Interior of a house built using Pius Schuler panels in larch. Our version in spruce or fir should be lighter, and have less variation in the strips. More images can be found at the Schuler website.

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[1] Pius Schuler is well-known in the Swiss low-consumption wood construction circles → Examples of houses built using Pius Schuler wall elements

035. Design consideration: roof and facade

There are so many details of the house under consideration right now that it doesn't make sense to talk about them until we come to some sort of agreement. I'm going to try to write updates as we get close to decisions, to keep a record of the evolution of the process. First up, a discussion of the choice of roof and siding material.

The unusual angular shape of our house demands a smooth transition between the roof and the walls. Ideally, the cladding should be of the same material and this limits the choice to slate, metal or fiber-reinforced cement board[1]. Factor in the cost, and only the last option remains.

In Switzerland there is only one[2] supplier for this material: Eternit. Eternit cladding stock is composed (by volume) of 40% Portland cement, 11% limestone powder and similar, 2% reinforcing fibers such as PVOH[3], 5% process fibers, 12% water and 30% air in the form of pores. The precursor to this material used asbestos fiber, but since 1991 all Eternit products have been asbestos-free. For more information on asbestos cement, see the report at the link at footnote 2.

I haven't been able to find a good example of an unconventional house completely clad in Eternit boards in a way similar to what we're considering, so below are a couple of examples in slate where the roof-wall differences are eliminated. The details here are not important (for example, our house will definitely have gutters), the point is that the same material covers all the surfaces and the format of the tiles is uniform over the two building elements (roof and walls).

Figure 26. House in Wallis by Nunatak Sàrl Architects[4].

Figure 27. House in Basel by Luca Selva Architects[5].

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[1] Faserzement in German, I'm not sure of the generally accepted English translation. Fiber cement board and fibrated concrete are some of the terms I've come across.

[2] An Austrian named Hatschek invented fiber cement (using asbestos) and patented it in 1901. He licensed the production method to only one manufacturer per country and it seems to remain that way. More information can be found in this report which deals with the asbestos aspect → The Tragedy of Asbestos

[3] PVOH is a synthetic polymer → Polyvinyl alcohol

[4] Details at ArchDaily → Zufferey House

[5] Details at ArchDaily → House in Lupsingen

025. The land in May

Figure 18. A cat's view of the land from the street, looking towards the south.

I've been involved in several different tasks at the moment and haven't been able to spend much time on the house project. To let you all know that I'm still involved with the blog, here's a recent photograph of the land with the Bauprofile poles in the ground. They'll be removed the first week of June.

018. Peter Zumthor receives the 2009 Pritzker Prize

Figure 11. Entrance to the Saint Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, Switzerland. Photo by Luke Stearns.

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge this bit of news, even if it is a bit off topic. I've been meaning to visit some of his works for a while now but given their relative remoteness I haven't made the trips yet.

Entry on the Pritzker Prize website: 2009 Laureate, Peter Zumthor.

015. The Baugesuch

Figure 9. The Bauprofile marks out the edges and corners of the building.

The application (Baugesuch or Baueingabe in German) for our building permit (Baubewilligung) was recently submitted to the local building commission. It includes blueprints of the house, plans for the connections to the water, sewer and electricity supply lines and an analysis of the energy usage (Energienachweis). In addition to these things one is also required to physically mark out the corners of the proposed building on the land as shown in figure 9 above. This is known as the Bauprofile (aka Baugespann or Bauvisiere and it allows the commission and other interested parties to visualize the building and easily ascertain that none of the building limits are exceeded. As part of the approval process a period of time, usually two or three weeks, is set aside to give the neighbors the chance to file objections or concerns. There's a form for this and the objections (Einsprache) have to be submitted in writing. Naturally, we're hoping that there will be none against our plans. It's an interesting process.