Stunning green building wins 2025 architecture award

Original article by Cork Industry Federation

The new Clarissakork HQ in Bregenzerwald, Austria

Bregenzerwald is a region renowned for its contemporary wooden architecture, traditional craftsmanship, and sustainable landscape management. So, it’s appropriate that a building in this region should win this year’s BIG SEE award for architecture chosen by a panel of leading architects and designers in neighbouring countries.

Clarissakork in Vorarlberg is a business manufacturing sustainable interior and lifestyle products from cork. It was therefore natural for the architects Bischof & Zündel to construct a sustainable building using cork, hemp, and timber to show that these natural products are ideal building materials.

A louvred façade in front creates a homogeneous overall appearance while also serving as sun protection for the large, framed windows. The 16 cm thick timber construction reinforces the 40 cm thick rammed hemp walls, which serve both as insulation and as a visible interior surface. On the exterior, the hemp walls are clad with wood fibre boards and 4 cm thick cork panels, which also form the visible surface.

A generous roof incision forms a private outdoor area that opens up to the hilly landscape on the west side.

A base floor made of exposed concrete is followed by a supporting wooden stand structure. The vertically structured timber and exposed cork facade is interrupted by two continuous cornices made of exposed concrete, providing natural weather protection for the recessed cork surfaces.

The fact that the building materials show themselves everywhere with their unadulterated surface is not only an approach to resource conservation, but also meets the specific design requirements of the client.

In the kitchen, the cork is used as a functional surface.

The 40 centimetre thick hemp walls form the visible surface inside the manufacturing area. Thus, no plastering of the walls was necessary, and the rough surface of the hemp-lime mixture has a sound-absorbing effect.

With thanks to Gertraud Gerst and UBM Magazine: https://www.ubm-development.com/magazin/manufaktur-clarissakork/

Architecture
Bischof & Zündel Architektur | Baumeister; Laurin Zündel: https://bischof-zuendel.at/ueber-uns/

Client
Clarissakork GmbH

Year of completion
2023

Location
Lingenau, Austria

Total area
1.040 m2

Photos
Nussbaumer Photography

Construction project
New manufacturing and residential building

Location
Krumbach – Bregenzerwald

Architecture
Bischof & Zündel

Construction management
Bischof & Zündel

Construction start
September 2022

Construction
Solid construction, hand-hewn walls, timber frame

Facade
Wooden slats / exposed cork

Heating technology
Geothermal energy, photovoltaic system

Stunning green building wins 2025 architecture award

Here’s a simple trick using cork that reduces your refrigerator’s energy consumption and preserves food better

Brazilian Scientists Create Cork Sensor to Detect Banned Sodium Nitrite in Wines