The contrast is also made with materiality, wood versus stone. The added volume that joins the two pieces of the pre-existing house does not function as a corridor but as a served space that complements and invites users to gather around this place. In this place are the kitchen and dining room, where the light hits with greater force due to the permeability to have larger gaps that allow that transparency than the original house.
Description of project by Heltwerk Architekten
Caan is a town of 700 inhabitants in the Westerwald, between Frankfurt and Cologne. In the old town there are still some farms from the end of the 19th century, with their houses and haystacks made of volcanic stone. One of them is the starting point for the WW house project. The character of the original house had to be respected when adapting it to the 21st century, and the intervention was carried out under strict criteria of heritage conservation, using above all materials with low environmental impact.
A construction embedded in the 50s between the house and the barn was demolished to replace it with a new wooden volume, which will now serve as a hinge between them. To give the new element its own character and at the same time consistent with the whole, it was designed with a simple geometry similar to that of its companions. Its slightly advanced position on both highlights the uniqueness of the new volume and allows the trio to present a concert of typology, scale and color spectrum.
The structure of the added volume and its façade were built with wood, and this was covered on all its visible faces with slats of untreated larch wood. This envelope gives the intermediate building an abstract and smooth character that contrasts with the rough masonry of its companions. While the stone house was fitted out with the least possible impact on its character and with a minimum of technique, the wooden body was built following advanced technical standards, up to the level of passive construction.
The project dedicates the old house to the most private family spaces, while concentrating in the new wooden volume the collective space of the kitchen and living room. This is a contemporary interpretation of the traditional home or Stube, with large openings to the south that allow you to enjoy the garden and the adjacent forest. In the cold winter months they take advantage of solar radiation for the home and in summer they protect it from it by means of sliding doors.
