Light is the only building material that costs nothing and still transforms every room. So before we talk about materials, we draw the path of the sun across the site: where does it stand at ten in the morning in December, and where at six in the evening in June?The floor plan grows out of those lines. We orient the kitchen and breakfast table east, the living spaces south-west, and the study and bathroom north, because that is where the light stays even and free of glare. A house built on this logic needs noticeably less artificial light day to day.Protection from too much sun matters just as much. Projecting roofs, deep reveals and external shading keep summer heat out before it becomes a burden on the cooling system. Plan those details early and you avoid expensive retrofits later.In the end, good daylight planning is not measured in lux but in feeling: you know what time of day it is without looking at a clock.

Light as a building material

Timber was long the material of holiday homes. Today it carries seven-storey apartment buildings in the middle of the city. The reason is not nostalgia but building physics: cross-laminated timber carries a great deal of load at low weight and can be prefabricated in the workshop to the millimetre.That shortens construction time considerably. Where a masonry structure needs weeks to dry out, a timber shell stands within days, because almost no moisture enters the building. On site the work is assembly rather than masonry, with far less noise and traffic for the neighbours.There are limits nonetheless. Timber needs a carefully resolved detail at every junction where water could collect, and sound insulation between flats calls for carefully planned build-ups. Both are solvable, but neither is something you improvise on site.What eighteen years have taught us: the premium over masonry runs between five and ten per cent depending on the project, and it pays for itself through the shorter build and the lower running costs.

Timber: the comeback of a building material

The most common sentence in a first meeting is: how long does all this take? The honest answer: for a single-family house, nine to fourteen months usually pass between the first sketch and the building permit, and most of that is planning, not waiting.We work in seven phases. During the initial appraisal we clarify the budget, the requirements and what planning law allows on the site. Then comes the preliminary design with two or three genuine alternatives, so you can compare rather than simply approve. Only after that is a single design developed in depth.Before the permit application comes the conversation with the authority. A preliminary enquiry costs little time and settles contested points such as ridge height or boundary distances before they turn into a rejection. Those weeks are the best-invested time in the whole project.After that, detailed design, tendering and site supervision take over. You receive a schedule from us that names the start and end of every phase, and a monthly cost report set alongside the original calculation.

From sketch to building permit

Every new development on the edge of town consumes land that never comes back. That is why we are interested in the city that already stands. Three strategies have proven themselves in our projects.A rooftop extension uses load-bearing existing floors for one or two additional storeys, usually in lightweight timber. It makes sense when the stairwell and services are being renovated anyway. A gap site, in turn, demands precise floor plans because often only a few metres of width remain, but it rewards you with infrastructure already in place.The third route is the courtyard building. It is the most demanding, because daylight, access and the rights of neighbours all have to be resolved at once. When it works, it produces quiet homes in the middle of the neighbourhood.All three share a starting point: a careful survey of what is already there. Understand the existing building and you will almost always find more capacity in it than expected.

Journal

Light as a building material

Timber: the comeback of a building material

From sketch to building permit

Urban infill: homes without new land