In architectural modernism, wood has never been regarded as avant-garde; instead it has been perceived as sentimental, steady, traditional. Not so for the Berlin architectural office of Kaden Klingbeil. Since it`s founding, the practice’s special emphasis has been on multistory apartment buildings – constructed, moreover, of the material wood. At first glance, the team’s buildings are not recognizable as wooden structures. In terms of form, façade design, statics, and cubature, they allude instead to models from “white modernism.” Yet this duo, consisting of Tom Kaden and Tom Klingbeil, has rediscovered the advantages of wooden construction:
Wood offers a renewable, continuously self-replenishing resource, guarantees short transport routes, and minimizes dead loads, as well as offering energy-saving and CO²-neutral processing. As a result, the ecological performance of wooden construction – given the responsible exploitation of resources – is consistently positive. In fact, the primary energy expenditures for a completed shell construction in wood are only circa 30% of those for a traditional solid structure. In addition, the safety of installation processes and abbreviated construction schedules made possible by the industrial prefabrication of wooden structures promote ecological, energy-optimized, and resource-saving construction in urban areas.