Boathouse

Dynck was commissioned by Het Lankheet to design a boathouse for a replica of a locally historical boat which will be docked on Het Lankheet estate. Timber for the construction comes from the estate and was locally preserved by watering the wood.

The architectural starting point was to make the atmosphere of the landscape tangible. The concept for the form and structure was inspired by the way branches of adjacent trees in a forest can reach across to create a canopy of leaves.

A test model of the concept form confirmed the aesthetic intent and proved the structural feasibility and the construction principle. Based on this physical principle model, a set of rules was generated to define the relationship between columns, branches and roof elements of the boathouse and these relationships were used to build the digital model.

A parametric design approach made it possible to base the construction on a variable stock of the local timber. The ability to adapt the boathouse design to the available timber stock, rather than using standard stock sizes of construction timber from resources outside the Netherlands, maximizes the use of local available timber and makes the timber construction more sustainable.