Frümsen, the village in St. Gallen with the most walnut trees in Switzerland, was recently given a new landmark of sorts: a giant walnut. It’s being used as a waiting room for the Staubern mountain railway. Under the direction of Sepp Steiger, President of the Association of Master Carpenters of the Canton of St. Gallen, various planners and timber construction specialists worked together to turn this special building into a reality. Our tasks included procuring materials and performing CNC processing of the components.
A 3D scan of a real walnut provided the geometric specifications that our timber construction planners used as a basis to work out the scan data. This, in turn, was used by the CAD/CAM specialists to prepare the machine data for our five-axis CNC machine on which the components were ultimately processed.
The Frei Holzbau team assembled our manufactured components on site. Our true-to-shape walnut is ten thousand times bigger than the one we used as a basis. Featuring a domed nut-like shape, the 40 m2 waiting room is made of a total of 93 m3 of timber, more than 80% of which was sourced from local forests. Every component is unique. A reinforced concrete basement level forms the foundation, while premium copper shingles are used in the facade.
