process, so we ended up with a structure in more traditional Swiss/German carpentry techniques. Another reason for promoting Canadian timber framing has to do with self reliance: the communist era concrete and masonry structures require a high degree of social organization and large investments for machinery, cranes, vehicles, mixing plants. No wonder the former Eastern Bloc countries are now littered with large unfinished structures! In Canada, someone with a Skil saw, a few other tools and a pick-up truck cannot only help themselves, but even be an entrepreneur: a radical step from the big brother culture of communist times! So, our next project was designed as a demonstration and teaching project in stick framing. It is a housing development of 30 units in duplexes and triplexes at the periphery of Craiova. The units are large three- and four-bedroom houses for families that volunteer to foster street children. The problem of street children in Romania is not only a function of poverty, but also a direct result of the unsustainable economies of massive construction in the new market economy. In the resulting extreme housing shortage, families of six very often live in apartments consisting of a living room/ kitchen and one bedroom. It is easy to see why children just can’t bear this situation once they reach an age of ten or so, and leave.
In this project, the units are simple boxes with shed roofs not only to stretch the private donors’ funds, but also to make the teaching environment easier to understand. Funds saved on the lack of complexities were diverted to amenities: large rooms, balconies, generous glazing and sun shading devices of local acacia wood. The balconies are not accessible from the east-facing bedrooms upstairs, but from the single loaded corridor on the west side with views over the city. It was our feeling that a balcony better serves as a meeting place than as an appendage to a bedroom. Steering a 30 unit housing development in wood framing through a bureaucracy that doesn’t trust wood and is still dominated by former communist functionaries took us three years and countless modifications, but our patience was rewarded in the end and the development is now under construction. Some concessions to cultural preconceptions still had to be made: —studs are 60x160 mm, because the Swiss consider 2x6s (38x140 mm) unfit for walls. That goes for partitions, too. —the wall elements are fabricated on an assembly platform and placed by crane, because the Swiss construction manager does not trust the precision that can be achieved by nailing walls together on the spot. —all units have a full concrete basement, even though Romanian codes do not allow gas- or oil-fired appliances below grade. A house just isn’t a house without a basement in these parts of the world. However, we’ve come a long way and for our next project, a home for disabled and elderly persons, we have already done away with the basement. Maybe I can even nail a wall together on the spot, if I get the opportunity
Note the crane as a concession to European timber framing tech - niques
on |site 12
local architecture | in a global world
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