The wood/concrete ceiling was specially designed for the Pavillon.
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Wood as a scarce commodityLasers and softwareUnpredictabilityPublished on 23/05/2022
The Pavillon is the first building on the Novartis Campus to use wood as a distinctive design and support element, a decision which reflects not only the excellent ecological and sustainable properties of the material, but also the advantages in terms of construction compared to conventional materials such as steel and concrete.
While it seems so simple and clear in theory to combine the beautiful and natural with the rational and to use regional resources, there are still many challenges when it comes to practical implementation. These had to be overcome.
On the one hand, high precision was needed when joining the components together, which left no room for deviations because every joint had to fit perfectly at the first attempt. On the other hand, external factors such as the weather, the coronavirus pandemic and the shortage of raw materials also impacted the construction work.
From December 2020 to October 2021, a team of around 30 carpenters from Erne AG Holzbau in Stein, in the canton of Aargau, worked on the elements for the Pavillon. In June 2021, another 15 carpenters joined the team, which worked a total of more than 7000 hours to finish the interior.
When I visited the Pavillon at the end of October 2021, the wooden construction and carpentry work had already been completed, and my tour of the ground and upper floors of the Pavillon gave an idea of the enormous effort which had gone into ensuring that the building was completed on schedule.
Extended shell construction in furniture quality
“A key factor in meeting deadlines and budget costs was the fact that we were able to manufacture practically all wooden construction elements in our own production halls in Stein and deliver them completely prefabricated to the construction site,” explains Markus Weiersmueller, lead project developer at Erne.
When it comes to wooden constructions, it is essential to work under uniform conditions. “Installation on a construction site usually takes twice as much time. What’s more, the production hall offers better quality control since the conditions there are always the same in terms of temperature and humidity,” says Weiersmueller.
Carefully planned segmentation was also important for the efficiency of the woodwork. For the ground floor, for example, 40 prefabricated post and latching elements were delivered to the construction site by truck and mounted with the help of a crane. The prefabricated elements were quite a thing: They were each over six meters long, 3.8 meters high and consisted of six interconnected windows.
Starting at the position of the concrete elevator shaft, each individual post and latching element was precisely placed in the space between the wooden supporting posts, with a maximum clearance of five millimeters on each side.
As soon as the post and latching elements were installed, both the outer façade of the building and the inside of the window façade were completed. The elements had already been painted white and prefabricated in furniture quality at the factory. Additional brushing, nailing and other work were no longer necessary. This is extended shell construction at the highest level.
Christian Dannenberger, Project Manager Wooden Construction at Erne, explains the technical term: “So-called extended shell construction means that the built-in wooden elements have a stiffening function and load-bearing capacity as well as a finished, visible surface.”
Of course, this approach places high demands on production and assembly, but it saves a considerable amount of time compared to the usual completion on the construction site.
