A car/bike port (2014)
Larch wood cladding, two green roofs, five bicycles and one car.


To adequately accommodate a family car, four or five bicycles, two rainwater tanks and a lot of gardening tools and accessories, the old garage had to go. Besides being too small, it was literally breaking into two pieces while steadily sliding down the hill. The difficulty in this project was to create a secure structure to prevent sliding and stabilizing the area for heavy car movements. Simple prefab concrete elements and one strip footing hold the soil in place.

Since the old garage turned out extremely fragile during the demolition process, even the support columns, intended for re-use on the new structure, had to be removed. This resulted in a more elegant attachment to the gable wall, which was then insulated with reed mats and covered in lime plaster. The carport has two cascading green roofs which, in addition to the attached “insects hotel” allow more bees and insects to inhabit this usually wasted space. So far, all new inhabitants seem to be very happy with their new “living room”. Most materials were locally sourced wood: pine for structural use and larch for cladding. The cladding woods were cut by hand into parallelogram profiles, which allow air to circulate while at the same time creating an opaque surface.

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