Slovenia is a land of forests. Even today they cover almost 60 percent of the country. Being such a versatile building material, wood has been widely used in the country for millennia to create living spaces. The first known wooden structures in Slovenia date from 4,600 years BCE. These were pile dwellings — clusters of houses sharing a wooden platform on wooden piles constructed above water, such as those found in the Ljubljansko barje, the marshes near Ljubljana.
The structural limitations of wood — in beams, arches, piles or columns — has been continually tested, with methods of construction honed down to rational and logical ones that use simple shapes and forms such as squares, triangles and diagonals.
Analysis of traditional timber structures shows that their geometric order is often defined by the golden section, closest to humanity’s concept of beauty, and perhaps for this reason they often appear in harmony with nature and their surroundings.
A classic Slovenian example of this are traditional hayracks. One cannot travel far in the Slovenian countryside before coming across these wooden drying racks that dot the fields. They are used during the summer months to make hay from the soft meadow grasses, whilst in autumn, the wind blowing through their struts dries the beans and maize. In particular, the beautiful toplarji double hayracks, with their storage lofts and roofs, are unique to Slovenia, many built in the seventeenth century from oak and beech with carefully shaped and carved beams.
In the twentieth century, Jože Plečnik’s wooden church in Crna Vas, near Ljubljana, reinvented the use of constructional timber by drawing on folk traditions and styles. As the son of a carpenter, Plečnik always had great respect for and deep knowledge of the material.
OFIS arhitekti was established in 1996 in Ljubljana by Rok Oman and Špela Videčnik, on the back of winning several competitions including the Football Stadium Maribor and the Ljubljana City Museum extension and renovation. In 2000 they won the “Young Architect of the Year” award in London, UK, and since then their projects have been nominated for awards, including the Mies van der Rohe Award. The company works internationally, and projects have included a business complex in Venice Marghera, Italy, a residential complex in Graz, Austria, as well as 180 apartments in Petit Ponts, Paris, a project which led to the opening of a branch office in France, 2007. Most recently they completed a football stadium for FC BATE in Borisov, Belarus. Both partners teach at Harvard in the USA.
In the past decade, wood in Slovenian architecture and design has been experiencing a renaissance. Innovative timber construction systems have resulted in architects and clients rediscovering wood’s excellent ecological characteristics, fast and simple construction, and the attractive living environment it can create.
For us at OFIS, wood offers the chance to explore a unique national language as a counterbalance to fashionable globalised architecture. In projects such as the Shopping Roof Apartments (2007) we explored and reinvented traditional ways of using the material, with wooden elements forming façade cladding, balcony balustrade, roof, snow protection, and rain drainage, creating platforms and terraces, whilst with the Hayrack Apartments (2007) we paid tribute to traditional folk designs. We also use wood in all kinds of interior projects, such as the Villa Under Extension (2008). A wooden interior is cosy, elegant and friendly, creating a good acoustic and fragrant ambience.
For low cost housing we’ve explored highly pressed wooden laminates to form a wide range of façade claddings, balcony and terrace fences, side shelters, roofs, pergolas, which are durable and affordable. We’ve used these in urban and suburban contexts in Ljubljana, at the coast (the Honeycomb Apartments, 2006), as well as recently in Paris, at the Basket Apartments (2012).
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