Furtwangen, 2019-, Brandlhuber+ Team  / Andrea Álvarez Menéndez, Thomas Burlon, Martin Buchholz, Kristof Croes, Markus Emde, Hannes Hehemann, Gustav Ingold, Roberta Jurčić, Peter Richter, Gregor Zorzi

At the Siedle family business, located in Furtwangen in the Black Forest, a three-story residential building on the company premises, once slated for demolition, is now to be the headquarters and museum of the Horst and Gabriele Siedle Art Foundation. Similar to 0148 Rachel, the cubature of the old building will be cast in concrete and become the interior reference point of the foundation’s design. Due to the size of the cast, however, a technologically more complex process must be used in this project. Using photogrammetric scans, the building will first be recorded as a digital model and then translated into formwork matrices, into which the concrete will then be poured. The new reinforced concrete structure will reproduce the surface of the old building and become the supporting core of the new large wooden roof that will cover the foundation.

The “new positive” is going to be the main exhibition room of the building. The roof construction, reminiscent of typical local typologies, extends the space beyond the volume of the cast building to create an enclosing, multifunctional forum. The roof geometry is derived from the cubature of the existing building; the length of the roof surfaces is determined by the property boundaries and the terrain. Following the same logic, the permeability of the facade as well as the surface of the roof react according to the solar radiation—another external factor that influenced the design of the building. The existing building is not only preserved through the casting process, it also informs and contextualizes all elements of the design. The integration of internal and external contexts—the casting of the existing building and the typology of the Black Forest—creates a design dynamic that finds its physical expression in the fusion of all the components.