Strubobuob is a shop for all things nice and useful around house and garden, located in a former workshop for the reparation of watering cans and other metal ware in the village of Bezau. To bring the business’s two shops, one for gardening and one for tableware, together from two different locations, we were commissioned with the planning of a Gartenwerkstatt (gardening workshop): an addition to the original, recently renovated main building.
The small extension building in the main house’s former garden and the old building now form a shared front yard. From here, a covered entrance area with wide shop windows leads into the shop. Gardening tools and décor are sold on the ground floor while home- and tableware have found a new home in the attic. Two-storey gables on both long sides of the house, a reference to surrounding buildings in the village, create a functional and exciting cross-shaped layout on the inside and a distinctive character on the outside.
The interior space of the new extension building is characterised by raw surfaces, an exposed solid wood construction and simple details showcasing the craftsmanship of its builders. The few selected fixtures and the central staircase are made in black steel and take a back seat to the goods on offer. A solid spruce façade and solid fir on the inside walls, polished concrete floors with integrated heating and floorboards in ash wood provide a simple, yet striking space and refer to the building’s origins as a workshop.
The same idea is represented in the building’s supporting structure. The pre-fabricated timber-frame construction is complemented by non-bearing insulated, foil-free elements in solid wood. All exterior walls and the building’s bearing construction are made from solid wood. In order to keep the disruption of the business in the shop as short as possible, the building was pre-fabricated in a nearby timber construction company. A high degree of prefabrication allows for high-quality constructions at rather short assembly periods in the usually quiet winter months. As the construction site was very close to the carpentry, the upper floor was prefabricated in its entirety and installed on-site with a mobile crane.
