FOUR METRES WIDE and 12 metres tall – the holiday home that architectural couple Christine Arnhard and Marcus Eck designed for themselves at the foot of the Spitzstein mountain in Bavaria, southern Germany, is perhaps most reminiscent of a Monopoly house.
The building is put together like a box using gigantic panels of cross laminated timber (CLT) 160 mm thick. To give visitors a sense of the structure, the substantial doors on one of the gable ends are made from the same material. Inside, the walls are formed from adobe clay bricks, covered with a layer of plaster. The material is ideal for the wall-mounted heating pipes. The roof is lined with solar panels which provide sufficient electricity to run the house and charge the car.«