Do you also like cute European houses withbeams? But is it possible to erect such buildings in our open spaces, and we would also like to have larger windows... Architect Natalia Guseva will tell about all the pros and cons of half-timbered houses using a live example of her own project Natalia Guseva, architect
Born in Moscow (fifth generation Muscovite),graduated from a comprehensive school and a children's art school in Krasnopresnensky District in 1984, graduated from an art school in 1986, and from the Moscow Architectural Institute, Faculty of Housing Construction, in 1994. In 1996, she created her own design studio, Kvarta-Eco. Now she runs her own design bureau, Guseva-Style. guseva-style.com
Fachwerk literally translates from German aspanel building. In fact, that is what it is. The technology of half-timbered construction is German and is literally the "construction" of houses from panels, which, in turn, consist of posts (wooden or metal) and building filler. The filler can be clay, cement or brick, as well as glass.
It is quite easy to distinguish half-timbered houses of the past - their facade consists of square and rectangular sections with inclined struts.
Today, half-timbered houses look different. Sections are increasingly filled with solid glazing, and the clay that gives the characteristic shade has long been replaced by modern building materials.
My deep dive into this topic happenedseveral years ago, when I received an order for quickly erected, cheap, environmentally friendly and at the same time very beautiful cottages for a village in a relic forest. Figuratively speaking, I was given four notes and asked to play a symphony.
Having gone through a sea of options, I stopped, as IIt seems to be the ideal solution to the problem. The area where the construction was planned turned out to be unusually picturesque, but hilly. There was no time to design each house separately. All I could do was to calculate the correct location for each cottage, design the base on which the future house should stand, and, of course, make the village as attractive as possible for a potential buyer.
The first thing I did was find a company that was involvedsupplying half-timbered panels straight from Germany, and took up "beauty". What could be more beautiful and, without exaggeration, more magical for a city dweller than life in the forest? But what is the point of settling far from the city if this very forest is constantly hiding behind the windows? What to do?
This is where half-timbered construction has fully justified itself.For each house I made one, and sometimes several walls with continuous glazing. So the forest entered each house and became part of the interior. At the same time, the neighbors' houses remained behind blank walls.
There are many advantages to half-timbered construction, here are the most significant of them:
Half-timbered houses have only one drawback.In the case of using solid glazing, which certainly provides a record amount of natural light, expands the space and “lets” the landscape into the interior, a fairly significant amount of energy is spent on heating. And the more glass panels, the more energy is required to maintain heat.
However, this minus loses all relevance when you look at a modern half-timbered house. A dream house, nothing less.
