Extension workshop, Gurmels

The project
Gurmels, neighboring municipality of Murten, has grown enormously in the last two decades due to mergers with surrounding villages. Since the turn of the millennium, the population has risen from 1500 to almost 4500 people, and the municipal area has tripled to over 17 km². Because of this growth, the 1991 depot no longer met the needs of the community, which is why a new depot was built in 2017.

The construction
The supporting structure of the workshop was made of glulam. The trusses have a length of 25 meters and rest on 4.5 meter high wooden columns. Rafter purlins were suspended between the trusses at a distance of 62.5 cm. The roof is braced with the help of a three-layer slab. The prefabricated wall elements in timber frame construction with an insulation thickness of 220 mm were clad with trapezoidal sheets.

The challenge
The bracing of the building presented a challenge. The building can be practically completely opened up on one long side, which means that it has no load-bearing and bracing walls there. In addition, it could not be attached to the existing building. Since the building has no interior walls, only a few walls were available for bracing; they are also not arranged very symmetrically. As a result, high forces can occur in the walls due to wind and earthquakes, which have to be transferred into the foundation. In order to ensure the bracing, steel parts were inserted in the concrete beforehand to connect the bracing walls to it.