Graduate students Ian Bryane, Jake Farquharson and Jan Hendrikse are working on a building model designed to boost rural communities by providing affordable, well-made homes. They’re teaming up with Forsthof Krümmel, a company that manages forests sustainably and supplies lumber. The plan uses a super-local supply chain to create two 60 m² prototype houses in Lärz, a village about an hour and a half northwest of Berlin. This method focuses on using local materials, workers, and skills: wood taken from nearby woods, processed at a local sawmill, then put together by local craftsmen funded by the community.
The design choices cut down on outside materials and keep things eco-friendly. The team is digitally crafting custom wooden windows and cabinets to avoid needing fancy machines, and they’re using ground screw foundations instead of concrete so they can build floors rich in timber. They’re planning to start building in May, which will give them real-life experience testing everything from managing the forest and milling the wood to assembling the structure and finishing touches. Their big aim is to make a practical guide that helps rural leaders find and use what they already have-skills, money, materials-to get projects like this going.
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