Interview

Apart from this interview, what is the reason for you both spending the week here in Konstanz?

Timm Schönberg
We work in Konstanz and London. Our daily work is local. In principle we are two small offices. Tobias has his construction site here (he points to outside the window, where concrete is just being poured). We work on a daily basis as project architects, just like in a larger office. We meet if there are important things to do. At the moment this involves a major revitalization project for a London railroad station. A competition amongst investors who have each joined forces with architects.

How often do these meetings take place?

Timm Schönberg
About every six weeks. In between we phone and mail each other.

How long have you been doing this?

Timm Schönberg
Three years, that’s how long we’ve had a joint office.

Which was never at the same location?

Timm Schönberg
Exactly. I was already in London at the time. Tobias was initially based in Hamburg and now he’s back in his hometown of Konstanz. But we have known one another for a good 15 years, since we studied together at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, in a seminar by Adolf Krischanitz.

Tobias Kraus
A year later we met again in Barcelona, at Enric Miralles.

How do you manage to work together with such a distance in between?

Tobias Kraus
We have always given each stuff to correct. This way we each develop our own ideas, but often doesn’t know what we’re actually doing. You need outside judgment.

So there no joint initial project which brought you together?

Timm Schönberg
Let me go back a bit: In 2000 I went to London and worked at Grimshaw. Basically, working for ourselves the result of dissatisfaction with the circumstances in the companies we were working in. At Grimshaw and Arup Associates in London I was not really able to do what interested me. And so we gradually started to apply to project developers, and that’s how the projects in Bradford, a small city 300 km north of London, came about. And then Haus W in Hamburg came along. Tobias was prepared to open an office in Hamburg and we thought we can really start things moving now.

You moved to Hamburg because of “Haus W”?

Tobias Kraus
It was a really complex affair which required precise handling. It is very important to us to be available locally, during the construction phase as well. Things are different in large companies, of course, where you draw every detail, pass them on to the workers and they take care of it. Or not, as the case may be. I, on the other hand, get out there, speak to the workers and we develop the details together.

How would you rate the building culture in Germany compared with that in Great Britain?

Timm Schönberg
In Germany there is more interest in constructing a good building than there is in England ...

Interest from whom?

Timm Schönberg
From everyone! Architects, craftsmen, developers. In England the main concern is that it sells.

You mean, the level of craftsmanship is higher in Germany?

Timm Schönberg
Yes, much higher!

Your colleague is pulling a face!

Timm Schönberg
Here you can buy finished products which are near perfect. Everything is regulated. There are regulations on how to build windows. They don’t have that over there.

Tobias Kraus
Hmm, if I request something here that doesn’t comply with regulations the craftsman writes me a memo stating that he cannot guarantee anything.

Timm Schönberg
The tendering culture is different. In Germany, as the architect, I specify what kind of sealing I want. In England they define the “performance”: How does the sealing perform? It is the craftsman who then decides which one he is going to use.

And which is better?

Timm Schönberg
The work has to be done either way. You get more satisfaction if you have helped build it.

Tobias Kraus
If I look out of the window here I can see what is happening on the building site. I can always intervene. Sooner or later the workmen accept you.

Timm Schönberg
In Great Britain there are just a few architects who think in continental European terms. The most well-known is David Chipperfield. But the British scene was far more heavily influenced by the 1980s high-tech architects: I think that this school of thought really derives from industrialization. It’s about assembling elements. We Germans think about compactness, perforated facades, space ... the British don’t. Everything is screwed, plugged, not poured in solid concrete. Over there everything is made of steel. Even in the City of London, where for listed building reasons lots are then clad with sandstone, there is always a steel construction behind the facade.

Tobias Kraus
Framework construction is also prevalent in the United States: Wooden frames for smaller buildings, steel frames for high-rises ...

Timm Schönberg
The thought process there is technical: What kind of screw do you use? But spatial considerations fall too short. They can make wonderful halls, for example, for train stations. But the sense for other spatial contexts has been lost. They used to be able to do it. We have often visited the John Sloane Museum and were impressed with how complexly the space was thought through.

When do you make the decisions about material?

Tobias Kraus
Late, in the tendering process ... no, that was a joke. But if anything the material is not decided on at the beginning. We look for it. For example, the building out there. We are here in Konstanz, an old town which is built very densely and compactly. There was a competition, strict stipulations. As a modern-day material we suggested a concrete which with certain additive materials needs no damp-proofing, no insulation.

An architect’s dream! In Modernism concrete fulfilled the boldest wishes, and then as a result of the oil crisis, nasty heat insulation was applied on top. Now, however, technology has advanced to the point where we can build pure concrete buildings again.

Tobias Kraus
Well, as a result of the new energy saving regulations the dream is a thing of the past again and construction such as this no longer gets approved!

How thick are you concrete walls over there?

Timm Schönberg
50 centimeters!

And how many centimeters will be required in the future to satisfy energy saving regulations?

Tobias Kraus
More like 80 cm.

How did you convince the developers to build in concrete?

Timm Schönberg
They were happy to be able to build something that was a little atypical in the Old Town!

You can also see the raw concrete on the inside of the building?

Tobias Kraus
Yes (laughs). On the other hand, there are very few contemporary buildings in the Old Town in Konstanz. As such you can expect a different clientele. Clients who want something special for once. Haus W. in Hamburg on the other hand, is more of a little Black Forest building. In the old houses there you always come across huge beams and ask yourself what kind of trees there must have been back then. And things creak ... it’s a bit like that in the Hamburg building as well. You can feel the warm material everywhere.

Thanks to an article by Niklas Maak in the FAZnewspaper the Hamburg building house pretty much put you in the media spotlight.

Tobias Kraus
The response was great. But it has to be said: you don’t land building contracts on th back of a newspaper or magazine writing about you. Not yet, anyway!

The most reliable way is from friend to friend ...

Timm Schönberg
It’s better when it’s your direct friends who want to have something built. Sure, Haus W was all over the Internet. In England we were nominated for two young talent prizes and this was taken up by a couple of blogs. In the magazine HÄUSER, which also published an article about Haus W the editors said that an article would bring 3 or 4 jobs ... well, we got a few calls at least.

Perhaps Haus W is too unusual?

Timm Schönberg
Perhaps. But we have already thought about developing a prefab house from Haus W.

From a construction point of view it bears similarities to your Hanover House in Bradford, England.

Timm Schönberg
Right, its roof construction is also made of glued laminated wood. In Bradford we didn’t want any supports in the room and therefore the roof cladding had to be like a self-supporting sructure. We developed it with the structural engineers at KLH, the Austrian timber construction company. They have their own fitters in England as well. The system is a great success there. Steel has been so expensive in recent years.

“Self-supporting bodywork” sounds very technical in a British way. Might I just remind you what you said about the differences in architectural thinking a while ago.

Tobias Kraus
The load-bearing structure came about in the course of the work and in our case also generates space, in other words becomes space. This is something which really interests us. Pretty much at the start of things we had a childhood image, which consisted of building caves by placing some chairs and cupboards together and covering them with a carpet. The client did not want a wooden house for himself and his family and by no means a “bodywork”. He had nothing specific in mind, he just said, “We would like a dignified home.”

Timm Schönberg
He grew up in a “coffee grinder”, a house with a square footprint and a pyramid roof.

Now that you mention it: You cam up with a very individual interpretation of a “coffee grinder”.

Timm Schönberg
Oh no!

Tobias Kraus
But, you’re right in a way, even if we have adjusted the footprint. It does follow a 3x3 room concept as far as the upper floor is concerned. But it was not the form, the material, the construction or the building regulations which were important to us initially. We simply built a model which placed all the desired rooms together as modules.

Timm Schönberg
This “relating” is for us the most important aspect, regardless of whether we are talking about a residential building, a larger building or an urban planning project. Ultimately it is always about relationships between people and not about creating chic containers.

Thank you for the interview!

Oliver Elser is a curator at Deutsches Architekturmuseum. He has written numerous architectural reviews in newspapers and magazines (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Texte zur Kunst, Frankfurter Rundschau, Der Standard, Profil, Bauwelt etc.) as well as in catalogues and books. He has taught in Graz and Vienna. He lives with his wife and two children in Frankfurt/Main.
www.architekturtexte.de

project management: Andrea Nakath

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