The envelope consists of 1690 mothballed highway guardrails acquired at scrap price – they aptly communicate the main purpose of the workshop. At the same time, it features a robust character that is echoed in the concepts for construction, materials selection, and clear building organization in plan. The guardrails, only coarsely cleaned, display an interplay of light and shadow that defines the predominantly closed northern, eastern, and western facades. They were also applied to the underside of the canopy roof, cantilevering by 9 m. This establishes a work area in the open along the glazed southern facade and permits a diverse range of uses while offering protection from sun, snow, and rain.
The canopy design extends the shallow pitch of the shed roof structure. Facing the south, its slope provides optimal preconditions for a roof-mount photovoltaic system and the drainage of the entire roof surface by use of a longitudinal gutter running parallel to the stream.
The 8 m wide interior lane traverses the middle of the building and is the heart of the workshop. It accesses the 20 parking stalls used for different types of vehicles, the storage areas on the gallery level, and the workshop spaces behind the glazed facade oriented westward. The full upper floor houses the staff areas. The architects organised them within a compact and enclosed volume. Different than the large hall, merely kept free of frost during winter by use of a hot air blower, the staff areas are heated and certified according to the Minergie-P Standard.
The primary loadbearing structure comprises a limited number of elements that were assembled by use of simple methods. The roof beams are exposed to the weather and feature a continuous height of 1.56 m, which is a response to the heavy snow loads. The beams, columns, and wall and ceiling elements consist of glued laminated timber. The ceilings above the ground floor feature timber concrete hybrid slabs. The large spacing between columns allowed the architects to create freely partitionable and flexibly usable interiors, corresponding to the client’s intention of realising a functional and efficient workshop. The sensual architectural and visual impression is not in contradiction to but an intrinsic aspect of the workshop as a rough and unpretentiously functional structure.
