property
Teutonic TECHNIK
Mike Gazzard Hon FRIBA
Back in 1997 and high up on St George’s Hill in Surrey, a German company called Huf Haus (pronounced Hoof House) built three five-bedroom houses, each of 5,500 sq ft (510 sq m) to establish new standards in house building and in the process winning multiple industry awards and public realm recognition for their innovation excellence.
“Vorsprung durch Technik” literally Advancement through Technology - was the mantra coined in 1983 by Audi’s advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty to launch the Audi 100.
Fourty years on, it still applies.
If the same term were to be applied to home design and construction, Huf Haus would merit the accolade of the Rolls-Royce of house building, with its brilliant combination of precision engineering and high quality construction.
Although the initial impression is that this is a steel frame construction, it is in fact timber- frame. This is not the timber-frame system beloved by fake Tudor housebuilders, but the post-and-beam method of construction, which has an even more venerable history. However, unlike traditionally hand-crafted timber-frame houses, which use mature timber, Huf houses use laminated Swedish spruce from sustainable forests.
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surreymagazineonline.co.uk
Post-and-beam construction has the advantage of being able to produce houses that are modern in appearance, providing amazing flexibility in their use of space and offering housebuilders a simple solution to the two pressing problems that they are all desperate to solve: how to build quickly and with greater precision.
The basic structure of a 4,500 sq ft Huf Haus can be erected and made completely weatherproof, with all walls windows and roof fitted, in just one week or two if it has a concrete panel basement which provides cost effective storage space. The completed house is then ready to move into ten weeks later, fully completed, with all stairs, services, fixtures, fittings and decorations – which are all included in the guaranteed fixed-price contract.
Because the timber posts and beams carry the entire structural load, none of the external or internal walls is loadbearing, which allows large internal open spaces. Although the first impression is that all the external walls are glazed, some are solid. All walls and glass panels are infills, easily removed or re- arranged, allowing complete flexibility of layout and as much or as little privacy as one wants.
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