Bakery Sempach, Colt Switzerland

Dark wooden louvres preserving the traditional character in Sempach, Switzerland

The historical town centre of the small mediaeval town Sempach was marked for decades by a gap between two buildings. Wishing to maintain a different appearance to the neighbouring buildings, the new shop built at this place in Sempach, Switzerland, has an arrangement of darkly-coloured louvres.

For more information about Colt products follow the links to the Colt UK website.

Colt Products:

• Dark wooden louvres system

During the design process, the idea evolved to build a facade with sliding glass windows and a louvred facade in front of it rather than using a conventional shuttered facade. The possibility of opening the louvres and their dark colouring in combination with the glass behind it were intended to represent permeability in the facade.

Colt provided a 4 cm wide 5-layer wood glue panel made from fir and spruce wood, which has been weatherproofed. By using the combination of these two types of wood there is less risk of the louvres deforming, compared to solid wood. Furthermore, a special coat of paint was used to further increase the weather resistance: the 50 cm wide and 2.9 metres long wooden louvres were painted with anthracite-coloured paint, which included aluminium pigmentation but left the surface breathable.

The louvres can be moved to the desired position for each floor separately with the help of an electric motor. When closed, the louvres function as a hard outer shell, while when opened, they convey transparency. The control mechanisms are concealed within the ceilings.

Colt has been able to provide a modern solution whilst preserving traditional character.