Floating House
2006
Autostadt GmbH & Wolfsburg AG
Wolfsburg, Germany
Prototype
Hosoya Schaefer Architects AG, Zürich
Commissioned Study
Innovida GmbH
Mitsuhiro Kanada, Arup, London
The task for the Innovida project was to think in new ways and design an unconventional structure using a technology that originated in the boat building industry. The material used is a sandwich board with a polyurethane core, coated with fiberglass and produced and licensed by Innovida.
These foam boards provide interesting possibilities for new building processes. Since the panels are construction material and insulation at the same time, it is possible to build monocoque structures without additional supports, frames or fasteners. The boards are cut by common tools or a CNC milling machine and are simply glued together, making detailing and construction very easy. The whole building process works like model-making on a large scale. It is also cheap and takes only a very short time to construct.
Based on this, material building prototypes and a pavilion for the Autostadt in Wolfsburg were proposed.