Beech wood for architectural design: Three studies case from an international design contest terres de hêtre®

Abstract

The present contribution proposes three projects and relative speculative reflections, elaborated by the writers, concerning the important theme of the wooden roof construction, showing the results of the three competitions organized by the Terres de Hêtre® consortium, entitled: “L’architecture au service de construction en bois de hêtre des vosges”. The three projects, object of the paper (awarded with the third placement during the first edition and with the second placement during the third edition), describe an effort to demonstrate new applications, characteristics, shapes and unexpected unexpressed potentials of this traditional material for a new contemporary design; they are architectures that have the common characteristic of being all a great challenge to the intrinsic limits of the wooden material: in all the outcomes results the research of geometric complexity and the limit of the static-mechanical resistance of the elements is evident. The architectural forms are developed starting from a series of geometric and topological variations on the theme of the wood-frame roof: the first with powerful overhangs on the model of the gull-wing structure, the second on the tree-shape model and the third on the shell-ruled–surface model.