AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.04.2002, Page 89

are then closed on top and below by U-profiles with a
perforated web so that the heat-transfer is similar to
timber-studs. This wall-type showed unexpected load-
bearing properties because the rigid foam-insulation
supported the metal flanges so that they could not
buckle in the same way as free flanges. It was also
clear from the beginning that the material-price was
beneficial and the walls could be mounted very quickly.
The first experimental house was a 13 m2 guesthouse
in the Stockholm-archipelago. We simply loaded the
sheet-metal profiles in our boat and dragged the insu-
lation upstream. We began construction at 9:00 AM and
at 5:00 PM, the house had been put up.
At this time I began collaborating with an inventor,
Engvall, who had developed a special crawl-space for
a single-family home with an integrated solution for
heating, ventilation and installation. He began produc-
tion of prefabricated houses, which included my build-
ing-system and were delivered at a very low price.
Heating and operation costs were low and indoor air-
quality satisfied Swedish Asthma and Allergy Union
demands. After a series of reconstructions, this compa-
ny now operates on a small scale. The houses are
erected on the site with a mobile crane in 3-4 hours.
The architect Per Wáhlin designed his single-family,
three-storey house with an insulated crawl-space
where external air is preheated and fed into the house
through the floor by airgaps at the outer walls. A similar
solution is used for the intermediate floors, so there is
a combination of air- and floor-heating. The outer walls
are plastered on the outside with 200 mm. of EPS-insu-
lation and gypsum drywall on the inside. The roof has
200 mm. of EPS-insulation. All the intermediate floors
are built with a 115 mm. high-profile galvanised corru-
gated steel as a load-bearing layer, with a suspended
floor on top and a suspended ceiling below. The goal
set at the design of the house was that no organic
materials entered the house before it was fully erected
and closed. With the type of crawl-space used, mois-
ture-problems in the foundation are effectively avoided.
The building, “Villa Wáhlin”, stirred interest during its
construction and was nominated for Residential House
of the Year 1999 in Sweden.
With the first version of the system, the buildings
were well insulated and the primary load-carrying prop-
erties of the walls sufficient. In walls with large side-
loads and in roofs, the need arose for a supporting pro-
file for the transversal loads. Two years ago, I invented
a new solution with Z- profiles, whose simplified con-
struction can be adapted to a wide range of loads. This
product has been used in the projects presented below
and is patented world wide.
Richard Sjöberg, the owner of a Stockholm marina,
contacted me to build houseboats using this system
during the autumn of 1999, when housing demands
there were at their peek. The first boats were erected in
spring 2000 and several hundred persons put them-
selves on waiting lists to buy them. The Swedish
Planning Authorities were not in such a hurry to
approve all those applications, but building-permits for
11 houseboats have been granted.
It became clear early on that to promote this idea,
more variations in the architecture were needed. Two
architects’ proposals were chosen for further develop-
ment and to prepare for the exhibition BO 01 in Malmö:
„Futura", by architect Per Wahlin, and „Avanti“ by archi-
tect Peter Ottosson. The boats are built as concrete-
vessels, 6 m. wide and 30 m. long, which constitutes
the first floor with sleeping-chambers and bathroom.
On top is a two-storey construction with the Casa Bona-
system with outside cladding from wood, hardpressed
resin-fibre, sheets or aluminium. The internal cladding
is made from gypsum.
Building in lceland
The first project, a co-operative housing-project, was
set up in Akureyri, lceland, and supported by the
lcelandic National Housing Fund. The constructions
were adapted to lcelandic conditions in co-operation
with the lcelandic Building Research Institute and the
Fire Authority. Holtateigur 13-19, a row-house with four
dwellings, was created by architect Fanney
Hauksdóttir. Walls and roofs are built from the Casa
Bona-building system; external wall-cladding is a
standing wooden panel and the roofing is made with
corrugated aluminium-coated sheet-metal. The house
was delivered in November 2001.
The next project was a 600 m2 hotel for a horse-farm
in Hveragerdi, lceland. Since the Fire Authority did not
agree on the use of EPS-foam in outer walls and roofs
for a hotel, the house was erected with stiff mineral-
wool. This proved to be just as fast and economic. The
architect of this building is Pétur Ottósson and the con-
struction-work is made by AVH in Akureyri. The hotel
will be ready for operation in May 2002.
The next project, planned in cooperation with archi-
tect Gestur Ólafsson, is a semi-detached house in
Hveragerdi, lceland. The house will be designed to
make optimum use of the building system together with
the heated crawl space solutions to create affordable
but high performance dwelling in low rise buildings. ■
87