House Benedek

1985-86 

Volker Giencke had made an early decision to build single-family houses exclusively of wood. He is enthusiastic about this building material, not only because of its suitability in terms of holistic relationships with the built-up environment. Its fascinating features also include vivid and vulnerable surfaces, their warmth and change in the course of time, and the fact that the material makes one conscious of not building for perpetuity.
The Benedek House is one of the primordial and in many ways excellent examples of how wood can be employed as high-tech material. The smooth surfaces with pasted panes, flush windows and double-pane diagonal glazing have no precedent. The opening mechanism applied to the windows, which swivel outwards and can be tilted in for cleaning purposes, is as persuasive as the grassed roof offering protection from intensive summer heat. The slightly bent longitudinal facades on the south side capture the sun and open a view to the north, upon a hilly countryside reminiscent of Tuscany.