For architect Pieter Weijnen of Amsterdam firm Faro, building his own low-energy home (featured in our July/August 2008 issue) was just the start. A year later, he broke ground on a new home for himself, partner Renske Felkema, and their children, Puck and Finn.
The striking black facade of Pieter Weijnen's new home is the result of the Japanese practice of charring wood. Weijnen, an architect at the Amsterdam firm Faro, first discovered charred wood through the work of Terunobu Fujimori and later traveled to the Japanese island of Naoshima to observe the traditional technique.
House 2.0, located on the manmade archipelago of IJburg, fine-tunes the design of the first house, but it goes further in energy efficiency and sustainability: “It’s a passive house,” says Weijnen. “We’ve got the biggest triple-glazed window in the Netherlands and a geothermal heating exchange system. There is a wood-burning stove; a rainwater tank; and—a bit unusual for the city—a wind turbine on the roof.” Add to this a whole tree used instead of a girder, adobe walls instead of plaster, and a charred-wood facade, and it’s clear that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill eco-house. “You have to take risks once in a while,” says Weijnen.
Charred Wood
Though traditionally, three Japanese cedar boards are bound to form a long triangle and a fire is started within the resulting tunnel, Weijnen built a brick oven to accommodate two six-foot-long larch wood boards at a time when he charred his wood in Amsterdam. After removing the planks from the brick oven, Weijnen doused them with water if the fires didn't go out on their own. He used his less successful pieces in the kitchen ceiling.
Burning the top one-eighth inch of each wood board is a natural way to preserve the timber and (paradoxically) make it fire resistant. Chemical preservatives, paints, and retardants are thus unnecessary. A further plus is the silvery beauty of the charred finish.
As in House 1.0, House 2.0 relies on recycled wood for support–—notably, two enormous former mooring posts of basralocus wood and an entire elm tree, which supports the suspended living room.
Weijnen used adobe plaster in nearly all the rooms of the house. It's an ideal material for passive houses as it can absorb and release moisture and heat exceptionally well.
Visions of the Dutch landscape are speckled with wind mills. There, wind turbines are also called wind mills, and at House 2.0, the Weijnen's mill produces one-third of the house’s annual electricity.