Housing Development in Wolfurt

This development near Bregenz comprises two compact and virtually identical three- storey volumes, each containing four owner-occupied dwellings (ca. 130 m2 each) and a studio flat (65m2). Situated on the lower floors, the maisonettes have their own gardens and can be divided into two 65 m2 units if required. The top-floor flats are complemented by large roof terraces. In the basement, there are 14 parking spaces and rooms with communal facilities. The larch-clad buildings are in a mixed form of construction, with reinforced concrete floor slabs supported by steel columns and a number of reinforced concrete bracing walls. The external walls consist of highly insulated prefabricated timber elements. An inner plasterboard stud skin serves to conceal the slender steel columns; it also provides a space for service installations and shields a continuous wind- and moisture-proof layer. The favourable relationship between the volume and the outer surface area of the blocks allowed extensive openings to be formed in the external walls, regardless of the orientation. The windows are linked horizontally by bands of sheet-copper cladding that structure the facade. With relatively low construction costs (?1,008 per m2 heated floor area), it was still possible to reduce the energy consumption to 20 per cent of that for comparable new buildings.