Baubotanik Residential Building

Masterarbeit von Lena Bonengel


[Auszug]


Abstract

Ever since time immemorial, humanity orients himself towards nature. The human curiosity of invention is based on the knowledge of natural processes. Be it to design perfect shapes, optimize adaptability, or to develop technologies. The project within this Master´s draft at least partially tries to catch up with the genius of nature. The cooperation with nature and taking advantage of the peculiarities is the base.

According to global and local problems as well as the losing orientation of humanity towards nature, one has to react now. The rapidity of human architecture and the remoteness of buildings from nature was the inspiration for the design idea. It was started to create a residential house with Baubotanik to integrate the proximity to greenery directly into living. The intention is to intergrow a treetop residential house later in time after the guidelines nature pretends. With the Baubotanik, an intervention is started to steer life into a habitable artifact. It is not about merely constructing Baubotanik buildings in the landscape, as standardized architecture does. It is about to let them grow and react to its surroundings, as nature
does. The inhabitants care in the firm belief that a habitable construct grows up by means of the intelligence that is inherent in nature.

A balanced coexistence of architecture and nature is to be found for qualitative living. The necessity for an immediate ready for occupancy, insulated house is obvious. The idea taken up is to inhabit a modular architecture from the begin. The inhabitant can observe and maintain the column growth of the annex directly next door. To grow an intergrown structure is the basis for implementing a house in the treetop later in time. The aim is to generate the step from purely natural living to a life in nature. It takes place with a more acute awareness of the seasons, smell, and haptic of trees and the growth itself. Having a green facade in front of the window is given from its planting. With time and the growth of trees, the combination of living and non-living building elements are implemented inside the treetops. After a few years, an intergrown tree structure, a Baubotanik adhesion, will occur. If the trees grow and are able to carry additional weight, part by part extra load can be added. First, a terrace can float in the treetops, then a lightweight construction and as a third an insulated house structure. From the beginning, the planted trees form a space boundary in the outside space. The exterior space thus becomes part of the house that belongs to it. A dependency of the tree structure is, therefore also given from the beginning, only increased during the time. The human is a central element in the whole complex. As a lifetime project, the person who maintains the Baubotanik tree structure may one day move into the treetop house himself. However, the lifetime project of the planting person is meant for generations. One day the children or grandchildren may move into the Baubotanik Residential Building. Strongly connected with a symbolic character, because not only the children grow up, but the whole house grows with them.

If Baubotanik is tested for suitability for everyday use and proves its worth, future forms of housing can be adapted to the needs of the rural area. People‘s fast-moving lives are counteracted by simultaneously making use of state-of-the-art technologies, the building is carried out close to nature, and climate change can be countered appropriately. The design limits are in correlation with tree growth; that is why an upper floor limit is present.

In total, an overall opus of nature, humans and housing should become a whole. The question, how this intervention can be implemented, how it meets the requirements of modern Homo sapiens, and whether it reacts to futural developments and technical progress is clarified within this brochure.