A new building, a facade around eleven metres high with a total length of almost 300 metres. The horizontal strips used by architects Koeb & Pollak in their design for the upper part of the façade are somewhat like splayed plumage, beneath them is a cladding of perforated trapezoid metal. Beneath the grid of the perforations is an underlay consisting of a grid of points. This “printed matter” on the wind protection membrane has an area of over 1000 square metres. These overlapping patterns engage each other in a relationship and develop something new – circular moiré effects that change constantly as you move and according to the angle you view them from. This makes the facade into a surface with multiple layers, a skin that represents both the building volume around which it is wrapped and the business accommodated inside.

The Tannberg forms the axis between Bregenzerwald, Arlberg and Lechtal. The Walser tribunal which gave the regions its name and which, after the arrival of the Walser in the region, unified the three towns of Lech, Warth and Schröcken for centuries, used to convene there. Information about the special qualities and the shared history of this region was to be conveyed at specially selected points and routes for hikers and had to be suitable for exposed locations at a height of up to 2000 metres above sea level, where weather conditions can be extreme. Instead of a conventional signage system the concept is based on benches and »look-out areas« made from planed, untreated larch that carry CNC-milled lines of lettering – no artificial colours, materials or signs. The combination of plain wooden benches with interesting messages gives the individual elements a great real – and also symbolic – effectiveness. Surround by a stunningly beautiful landscape, the users learn worthwhile information and short histories of each specific location. In-depth information that augments the core messages is given on an interactive hiking map with dynamically programmed cartography.

This top magazine from proHolz Austria presents decision-makers, architects and designers with the current trends in timber building at the highest level. Four times each year it brings important information on form, material and construction, theory and practice, timber research and timber construction in the form of interplay between the various disciples. Acceptance, reading frequency and intensity remain at a constantly high level. “zuschnitt” has proven its value as an important element for communication between the specialist public –a magazine about timber as a material and buildings in timber that focuses consistently on the target group of planners and decision-makers. Great attention is paid to the quality of the contents. The visual design of the magazine responds to these aspirations with bibliophile design and implementation. In order to distance itself from the “colour intoxication” that dominates communication media today the reproduction is deliberately restricted to black and white lithography. The inside pages are cleanly and editorially organized with, in part, an emphasis on the text. The impression of advertising is deliberately avoided. Independent surveys have convincingly confirmed the success of this medium in terms of attention, reader-magazine relationships and image. In addition to dealing with factual themes a number of issues are marked by design and poetic intentions. For example issue 16 examined “timber in language and timber as language” – it was deliberately designed without photography. Here things are precisely the other way around: the images are placed in the texts and in the typographical design – Pinocchio’s nose across several pages, a flow image with hundreds of different names of types of wood etc. In the title, too the usual image is avoided and a structured red surface is printed in letter printing with a wooden block. The structure of wood is visible and tangible. “No matter whether it is in the field of architecture or communication, choosing a certain material for a design application means incorporating its function and its character in the design. Beneath the surface of what is purely visible deeper significances of image and things are concealed. Why does something appear to us to be dry, bombastic, dusty, romantic, modest, unappealing or attractive? How can we, as designers, deal with this? The language of the material wood is varied and it can be experienced in a sensual material way; these are not artificially produced surfaces but appearances that develop from the life of the tree.” Reinhard Gassner

The publication “Bauen mit Holz – Wege in die Zukunft” appeared in conjunction with an eponymous exhibition by the TU Munich, which was held in the Pinakothek der Moderne (10 November 2011 to 5 February 2012). The aim was to present the ecological importance, technological potential and new aesthetics of the familiar construction material, timber. With the aid of explanatory graphics the first chapter illustrates the contribution to active climate protection made by the forest as a supplier of material. All the examples of buildings used in the graphics are presented by means of brief texts, informative photos and plans. In the following part nine well-known experts analyse the technological and aesthetic potential of the construction material timber in clearly structured texts. These texts are illustrated by a variety of examples of architecture. In the second chapter the main focus is on the constructional/technological aspect, which is reflected by the greater amount of building documentation material. In the third chapter large-format photography impressively illustrates the enormous range of exciting design possibilities that timber offers as a construction material. Rounded off with a comprehensive bibliography, this publication represents an interesting, descriptive and sensually stimulating read in a reader-friendly format – and not just for experts.

On the occasion of the international year of forests and the plenary meeting of “Wald & Holz” on 21 September 2011 the Austrian forestry and timber industry presents itself in the Viennese parliament. The challenge is to make the “Year of Forests” visible in an effective way and to introduce it into this place, which, socio-politically, is the most important location for discourse. The concept consists of a spectacular installation in the columned hall of the 19th century parliament building designed by Theophil Hansel. Photographs of tree tops captured are printed on a translucent net that is spanned below the glass roof of the hall. The light that filters through the glass roof onto the 270 sq. m. of stretched material creates a striking illusion of the atmosphere in a forest. The marble columns of the hall become tree trunks, the roof of the hall a canopy of leaves. You look, as it were, into the sky, inhaling the air through your nose, fully registering the forest’s rich, earthy smell. Eight planed wooden planks – up to 8.5 metres long – are fixed along the row of columns and in large lettering convey important information about the value and function of forests and of wood. To complement the installation a magazine designed by Gassner Redolfi KG is issued in a large edition by pro Holz Austria. On a total of 16 pages it provides information about forestry and the timber industry, about forest people and wooden heads.

“Holzböden im Freien“ (Wooden Flooring Outdoors) is a book from the series proHolz Information. The prejudice that wood is not practical for outdoor flooring is dismantled by means of expert tips from Holzforschung (wood research) Austria and by a number of convincing international examples. Empirical knowledge and the clarity of the reference projects are deliberately separated from each other in design terms but also in the layout of the book. The book core is embedded between natural brown printed front and back endpapers. The cover shows the sky and clouds and becomes the emotional starting point for the conditions under which wood products are used outdoors.

An architecture book composed of visual essays in five acts: persons / outside / inside / ideas / actors; as intermezzi there are plans and texts in the form of written reflections by five authors: Emmanuel Caille, Andrea Maria Dusl, Marina Hämmerle, Otto Kapfinger and Anatxu Zabalbeascoa. The buildings appear in all acts, the separate pictures establish cross-references across the pages to the virtual whole. In the manner of a “road movie” the journey through the architectural landscape of Marte.Marte is deliberately separated into inside and outside. Why? The aim is to enable the viewer to experience the architecture of Marte.Marte sensually – from the void to the volume and back again. Marte.Marte build their “nests” with very precise external shells, the “semi-outside” of the internal courtyards seems itself like a split or separation, a part of the rigid spatial boundaries. The fascinating qualities of the interiors include the special scale, the way in which expansiveness alternates with constriction, the increase and reduction of the pressure of spatial states and the architects’ handling of light. In the external elevations one is struck by the way the horizontal building volumes are anchored in the ground, the special figure-ground relationships and field of forces generated by the buildings. The graphical implementation of these qualities offers a new visual narrative of architecture in an unconventional book form. The inside / outside relationships in Marte.Marte’s architecture are woven together in a complex way. These relationships are presented in analogous form in the space of the pages of the book: aerial views of the buildings on the one hand convey an “extreme outside” in the sequence of photos of indoor spaces; on the other hand the reduced “X-rays” of the floor plans and sections form icon-like counterpoints in the “outside” sequence of images. The aerial views produce a visual miniaturization of the landscape and the buildings. By raising the buildings from the familiar plane the aerial perspective gives them a dimension of depth like a model. The magnificent series of colour images by Bruno Klomfar, Mark Lins, Petra Rainer, Ignacio Martinez forms the actual substance of the visual narrative and the images are articulated and reflected upon by informative passages of text with their own typographical design. As a volume, looked at from outside, the book seems like a building block – monochrome, compact, straight-edged and sharp without any protrusions or modelling. The voluminous, coarse-grain paper gives the book a tangible volume and a tactile lightness – a black box 163 x 225 x 41mm, with surprising insights on 416 pages. The cut edges, which are black on all sides, additionally give each panorama page an ultra-thin surround. The cover title makes its visual impact solely as the result of being partly painted – black on black.

This is not a book. As architecture, what you are holding is an unusual object that contains a multiplicity of situations and places. There’s room for reading, for vision, for comparison. This publication presents the APPROACH, the attitudes, and the architectural works of Geninasca Delefortrie as an opportunity to reflect in general on the relationship between architecture and its geographical, cultural, economic, and political context. You can run through the following pages in several ways. In accordance with its title, the book is structured like an open matrix of various elements. A polyphonic dialogue runs throughout the book, involving the words and viewpoints of many participants, who discuss the assumptions behind the practice of architecture, analysing the relationship between architecture and its context, between architecture and its clients, between public and private. It considers what the architect does, his work between programme and interpretation, the various planning tools at his disposal, and his end product: the shape and beauty of things. This wide discussion is illustrated by and imbued with the architectural works of Geninasca Delefortrie. Twenty projects are presented at length, each as a specific operation. These are put forward as concrete examples of how to clarify the ongoing relationship between architects, clients, contractors, public officials, and civilised society. A double page at the beginning of the book collects and compares all the principal buildings, presented according to the same parameters, in such a way as to bring out their richness of dimensions, the variety of functions, and the typological complexity that the architects have dealt with from 1995 to the present day. The independent judgements of five ‘critics’ complete the deliberation and help to define the character and qualities of the architectural approach that Geninasca Delefortrie works out in their creations. All these discrete elements are indissolubly interwoven among themselves: every theme for discussion relates to another aspect of the practice of architecture, projects can crop up in many parts of the book; attitudes and dialogues often return to the same argument, but always linking it to further aspects and insights. Alberto Alessi

WOODDAYS are “best practice events” devoted to the theme of timber construction for greener, expanding cities. The core element of the “road-show” is a mobile exhibition box measuring 3 x 3 x 12 metres. The first stops on this tour initiated by proHolz Austria and planned to extend over a period of several years are Bratislava, Ljubljana and Milan, where a start was made on 21 March 2014. In terms of content the exhibition aims to present the evident potential of timber construction; in terms of communication it addresses the material’s thematic presence in urban space, its direct appeal and how it is encountered ; in design terms the focus is on eliminating the folksy quality, on the material’s haptic quality and elegance, while in terms of function the show concentrates on mobility and autarchy (through the photovoltaic supply of energy). On one side wall of the interior pioneering developments in the field of timber building are shown. Vertical text bars and illuminated panels showing examples of projects are inserted rhythmically in the timber structure. The wall opposite communicates the ecological arguments for forests and wood. This is done by means of eye-catching graffiti with in-depth messages that relate to the pictograms on the external facades. The entrance and exit at the ends of the box contain introductory texts, labels and display windows featuring attractive exhibits. The starting point for this action was the exciting exhibition “Bauen mit Holz” in the Pinakothek der Moderne. It was initiated and curated by Hermann Kaufmann, TU München and designed in collaboration with Atelier Gassner. The innovative German timber building expert Alexander Gumpp, gumpp&maier, working in collaboration with the department of timber construction at the TU Munich, was responsible for condensing the large exhibition for this small mobile exhibition box. This show is the predecessor of the WOODBOX and was awarded the Gold Medal for Exhibition Design in the European Design Awards 2013. The new box is optimized in terms of content and design and equipped for different languages. The event label created by Andrea Gassner is a further development of the trademark created in 2005 by Stefan Gassner for “european wood”. The striking façade logo on the outside wall is made by incisions in the black wooden cladding of the box, accentuated by a restrained use of colour. The line grid produced as a result is continued graphically in various marketing communication applications. Poster subjects with “forests of battens” and folders with bar charts are created.

The principal protagonist of this exhibition is the exhibition space itself – a wooden box in the form of a shipping container that is transportable and can be erected and taken down quickly. “schauholz” – the name and motto of the action are cut into the external walls in oversized letters. The short ends of the box allow a view into the interior. The contents of the exhibition represent a “distillation” of the large exhibition “Bauen mit Holz - Wege in die Zukunft”. Openings to introduce light are made in the structure of beams and posts that is exposed in the ceiling and the right-hand wall. A show of current timber construction is embedded in the opening, similar to an analogous slide viewing box. It presents the current importance and the architectural range of wood as a building material. On 120 plates the screen presentation offers a second way of reading the selected projects. On the untreated left-hand wooden wall various ecological and economic aspects of the raw material wood are presented in a memorable way by graphics that employ crate lettering. The starting point for the texts and illustration was the scientific consultancy work for the original exhibition by Gerd Wegener and Holger König, Munich. The show case in the rear area forms a stage for a spectacular model building. It terminates the exhibition space and, seen from outside, creates an attractive display window for the show.