Digital façade design: Rebuild of a half-timbered house in Frankfurt

Originally, the client wanted to preserve the old ensemble in Frankfurt’s Alt-Sachsenhausen district. As the building’s poor condition made refurbishment impossible, the client decided in favour of a new structure instead. Architect: Franken Architekten GmbH
Standort: Kleine Rittergasse 9a-11, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The residential and commercial building known as the »Kleiner Ritter« (Small Knight) now asserts itself with a distinctive façade: giving a nod to the half-timbered structure of the demolished building, Franken Architekten designed a façade model similar to a traditional drafting method called »Darmstädter Zitterstrich«. »The timbering was supposed to appear as an afterimage. It can be recognized from a distance, but it dissolves more and more as I approach. This means the past becomes hazier until it consists merely of individual lines,« says architect Bernhard Franken of his design concept.

This façade design was shaped in StoDeco Plan façade profiles using a digital design and manufacturing process. The massive plaster baseboard from StoSto SE & Co. KGaA consists of a lightweight mineral-based material characterized by its pressure-resistance and fine porosity. These sheets are not only easy to use; they are frostproof, shock-resistant and non-combustible.

For the CNC-based milling of the special pattern of the sheets, Verotec GmbH – an associated company of the Sto Group – carried out a test milling run. After the test proved successful, the façade was divided into 144 surfaces of various sizes. The Zitterstrich design was then cut into the sheets as a V-groove using the CNC milling machine. The light-grey sheets were prepared in Lauingen and mounted onto the façade in-situ.