c-b-a - Multi-family timber house: Bercahaus
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Multi-family timber house: Bercahaus

c-b-a

Housing  /  Completed
c-b-a
c-b-a

Bercahaus is the first (5 levels) multi-family timber house built in berlin.

Bercahaus is a highly sustainable structure (energy class A) that give expression to the inherent, latent potential of architectural form of performing as un urban gate, or threshold, marking the transition between what is private, semi private and public.

Bercahaus is a new housing development for a Berlin district which has recently become a destination for a large number of new comers, foreign and German alike: artists, students, professional as well as families. The new housing complex completes an existing block by filling its missing portion on the street.

The street facade is a reflection of a tripartite floor plan that allows for a certain flexibility. Different apartment size are designed depending on the need of the final dweller: from studio to three bedroom apartments. The facade features two solid volumes--east and west wing--that frame a central glass portion. The facade is an attempt to mediate the different heights of the existing building on the east and the west side of its perimeter into one. The two wings feature a different height and a different roof profile.The building, as a result, establishes an aesthetic, iconographic interaction with a number of romantic urban gates present in the Berlin conurbation.

The structural frame was developed by Pirmin Jung Deutschalnd who foresaw a integrated system of hybrid floors (concrete and timber) joining prefabricated timber frame panels for the five levels above ground. The timber house sits on top of a pour in place concrete foundation. Elevator shaft and staircase are built in prefab concrete panels.

Bercahaus is conscious of the ongoing need of saving energy. It features a very high energy performance (40kwh/m per year) with very high living standard in all department: savings, safety, value, comfort, health and sustainability.

Bercahaus is a pilot project developed by c-b-a in collaboration with LIGNOALP. It is engineered by Pirmin Jung Deutschland as an innovative system of prefabricated timber panels braced by an hybrid system (concrete and timber) of floor. It was built in a factory in Bressanone, Italy, shipped to Berlin and assembled by two workers in 21 working days.

c-b-a provided architectural service, phase 1 to 5, interacting with structural and mechanical engineers to define the technical components of the project.

Credits

 Berlin
 Germany
 PH J 84 Gmbh
 06/2019
 950 mq
 c-b-a
 paolo conrad bercah, stefano bacciocchi
 LignoAlp, srl
 Pirmin Jung Deutschalns, Bergmeister office, METIS Lighting
 yasutaka kojima

Curriculum

c-b-a is an acronym for context of bare architecture, as the practice aims to find the bare life of architectural form, namely a form stripped of the prevailing rhetoric of the day. Since 2013 c-b-a has been increasingly involved in a number of activities engaging with the city of Berlin both at a macro and micro scale. These include the design a number of contemporary housing complexes in Berlin (in partnership with the leading Italian company in the construction of wood technology) that may acknowledge the new social and living conditions (like the increasing atomization of the traditional family structure) or the a new model of living/working units that may provide a provisional solution to the on/going refugee emergency.

http://c-b-a.net/


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