A modern home without concrete — a KONTIO family house

Kontio SmartLog

A modern, concrete-free KONTIO family home

Kristof and Joana, young doctors from Switzerland, wanted a modern, healthy home, so they chose timber-home manufacturer KONTIO to build them a modern timber home in Valais, Switzerland, in a valley surrounded by mountain slopes and lakes. The main reason for choosing KONTIO was the non-settling SmartLog beam.

Kristof and Joana both work in medicine, and both wanted to live in a modern house. But neither Kristof nor Joana wanted a house built from concrete. A timber-frame structure with OSB boards wasn't a material that appealed to the young couple either — quite the opposite. Joana in particular has serious reservations about this type of timber building. "I don't find that kind of timber building appealing. A timber frame covered in plywood boards strikes me as rather flimsy. If I had to put it precisely, these houses feel to me like consumer goods — something you use, consume, and then throw away. I didn't want a house like that, partly because of my own ecological outlook. When choosing the structure for our house, it mattered to me that the house my husband and I build can be passed on to our children, and theirs in turn. I wanted to live in a house that fits the local landscape, becomes part of it, and lasts. KONTIO homes meet all these requirements of mine." That left two types of material to choose from: brick and wood. Given the mountain setting of the build, with trees and forest all around, the young medical couple leaned towards wood as the building material for their future home.

Kristof and Joana's turnkey family home was built from the non-settling Kontio SmartLog™ beam, an innovative technology that makes it possible to realise the most modern architecture in timber. Because SmartLog™ beams don't settle, unlike ordinary timber beams, which settle as they dry, the architectural possibilities for a modern timber home expand significantly. Any combination of building materials becomes possible, trims can be very slim, and corner solutions can be simple and elegant too. The decisive argument for choosing KONTIO as their partner for a turnkey timber home was that SmartLog™ technology is ideal for building low-energy homes, and that KONTIO, the world's largest manufacturer of glue-laminated timber homes, specialises above all in individual, custom-designed homes.

Kristof and Joana had a charming, modern turnkey home built, and were able to move in six months after construction began.

Timber homes you can breathe well in, and live well in — KONTIO

For Kristof, who suffers badly from allergies and asthma, moving into the new house meant a major change in his life, since his health took a turn for the better. In the clean mountain air and his timber home, he breathes more easily, and the asthma attacks he used to suffer from regularly have disappeared entirely.

A new way of life in a KONTIO family home

The new house brought a new way of life into Kristof and Joana's days too. Kristof says: "We live in much closer contact with nature now, and we try to take care of ourselves and of nature too. We compost all our kitchen waste in the garden, we've also got chickens and grow our own vegetables, so when it comes to food we're now much less reliant on supermarkets and mass-processed food. Our home is our island of calm, the opposite of the rushed city life we used to live."

The environment inside a timber home also naturally evens out temperature differences. Wood is a material that gives a feeling of warmth, unlike stone or concrete, for instance. Joana says they keep the temperature in their new house 2°C lower than in their previous city apartment, yet the young couple still feel just as comfortable, even though the actual temperature is lower. The whole house smells wonderful, and wood naturally brings a sense of calm, relaxation, and is simply beautiful on its own. The natural grain of the wood makes you want to touch it, and the first thing visitors do is run their hands over the wooden walls, enjoying the beauty of the wood with more than just their eyes.

Living in connection with nature

Joana adds, to finish: "We live in our home as if we were outdoors. We're immersed in the landscape, in harmony with the nature around us. When I come home, I don't feel like I'm stepping into a building. The boundary between indoors and outdoors isn't clearly defined — home and nature are connected, and that gives my life a new quality. This lovely place, our home, acts like an amplifier, bringing the beauty of nature and the landscape right into our house."