A visionary of timber construction

Growing up in his father’s carpentry shop at Lake Weissensee in Carinthia, Christof Weissenseer's career path was anything but predetermined. Actually, he wanted to study architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but then went to North America over 35 years ago. After graduation from the Higher Technical Education Institute, Weissenseer spent more than six months in Canada, where he could have taken over his uncle's hang glider production. Instead, he joined his father's three-man business and completed a degree business economics in Klagenfurt while working in the company.

Back then, farmers supplied the material, while the carpenter only provided his labor. Offers, bills of materials and other office-related tasks were almost non-existent. In fact, Weissenseer's father regarded them as unproductive and therefore not as real work. When tourism started to increase around Lake Weissensee in the 1980s, the tides turned. Weissenseer seized the opportunity and laid the foundation of the company Weissenseer Holz-System-Bau in its current form.

Visionary and pragmatic at the same time

According to Weissenseer, having a clear vision and a mission, which determine the actions of all employees, are the two key factors in the success of a company. The vision is to give every citizen of this world the possibility to live in a plus-energy house. Of course, the master carpenter is aware that this idea cannot become reality in just one human lifetime. Nevertheless, a clear mission can be derived from it, and his team works on it day after day: the construction of sustainable and affordable housing and working space using standardized components with high architectural quality.

In addition to multi-story residential and office buildings, the focus is on renovation projects and exclusive single-family homes. Although the latter is a small segment, it is crucial for innovation: "In this segment, our customers only want the best, which gives us room for new developments. Some of these ideas are also used in the construction of apartment buildings."

Weissenseer considers the competition between individual timber construction products to be as unnecessary as that between wood and concrete and steel. "We always use the most suitable product, while keeping an eye on functionality and sustainability as well as economic aspects. It is also important to us to use as little wood as possible to build as much volume as possible in timber construction," Weissenseer says, highlighting his point of view.

The company manufactures exterior walls with a timber frame structure, false ceilings with a span of up to 5 m and load-bearing partition walls made of cross-laminated timber. Non-load-bearing partition walls are executed as drywalls: "A wooden wall with clay plaster would cost three times as much. We are just as pragmatic here as we are when it comes to stairs and balconies made of precast concrete elements in building class 5."

Using the machines for heating

The elements are manufactured in Greifenburg, where the company built the so-called WCB Factory (Weissenseer Compact Building Factory) in 2008. The idea behind it was to house production in as small a space as possible – in a self-sufficient building which is designed according to the plus-energy standard. "From the initial design to the actual construction, we managed to reduce the hall volume by 70%," Weissenseer tells us and adds that this helped the company save land, construction costs, heating energy and maintenance costs.

Equipped with three-pane windows, 40-cm-thick insulation and underfloor heating, the waste heat from the machines is used to heat the production hall. The machines themselves are powered by energy generated by the PV system on the roof. "At first, many people laughed at us for making this kind of effort, but when energy prices started skyrocketing two years ago, even last critic fell silent," Weissenseer says and adds: "Of course, we can't do everything in our WCB Factory, but that's not our goal anyway. For us and in general, efficiency and performance is much more important in this highly specialized field of ours."

The field Weissenseer refers to is prefabrication, to be precise the highest possible degree of prefabrication of elements by a team of 50 experts under controlled conditions. According to him, this is the only way to work efficiently, to keep time on the construction site short and to avoid mistakes.

Operating globally

Weissenseer has had an office in Vienna for 15 years and another one in Berlin since 2016, and has stakes in companies in Kazakhstan and China. "We think globally, but still act regionally," the master carpenter emphasizes. In all projects, which can be found on almost every continent, the company works closely with local partners to whom it makes all of its know-how available. Weissenseer does not see patents, but close collaboration and open communication as the right way to go.

Take-back guarantee for houses

Weissenseer sees the architect as a conductor who unites timber construction, statics, building physics, ecology and all other relevant factors and brings them to life in the form of a building. He is convinced that a conductor can only deliver an excellent performance when they have the best musicians. Nevertheless, architects also have a duty to the future according to Weissenseer. They have to think in long-term strategies and plan buildings in such a way that they could still be used in 100 years’ time.

"Once a building has reached the end of its lifespan, we need strategies which allow us to recycle the building materials used," the master carpenter says, referring to the cradle-to-cradle principle, and already thinks about the future: "In 50 years, we could source the components for a new house from old, existing buildings." In order for this to actually be possible, however, it takes precise documentation of all materials used, a standardization of the components, connections that can be taken apart, plausible profitability calculations and, above all, the will to actually do it. Weissenseer is thinking of a take-back guarantee for each building, which binds the builder to the property over the long term. "The result would be significantly higher-quality and more durable buildings. In this area, timber construction can play to its strengths even better."