Hundisburg Castle Internship 2014

The American College of the Building Arts partnered with Castle Hundisburg to create an international internship program in Germany for the summer of 2014.  Dean Emeritus Warren, Samuel Friedman, and I were tasked with designing a folly to commemorate an orangery that existed on the castle grounds years ago.  Being a sophomore at the American College of the Building Arts (ACBA), this project provided valuable experience in working with clients and formulating a design that met customer expectations. 

The top rendering represents exterior side of the folly and Hundisburg Castle.  It is meant to be more traditional in design and provide differentiation between the contemporary interior design. 

Due to the relatively large scale of the project, which is scheduled to be completed during the summer of 2016, the main objective of the 2014 internship was to produce the overall layout and design of the project and complete the doors and windows of the folly.  The interior and exterior doors and windows were originally planned to be carved using stone on the castle grounds, but once inventory was taken on the available stones, we found stones that once composed the windows on an old gardener’s house on the property.   This discovery greatly reduced the amount of new stone that needed to be worked as it allowed us to use stones with a historic connection to Hundisburg Castle.  As with any project dealing with the historic fabric and integrity of a structure, intense focus was placed on ensuring that, while we were using original stones, that there was still a distinction that marked this folly as new construction.  After consulting with the German Historic Landmarks office, it was decided that the exterior side of the folly would consisted of traditional rubble stone construction with original limestone doors and windows, while the interior would represent a more modern or contemporary style with a stucco render and brownstone composing the interior doorway and windows.

Dean Emeritus Simeon Warren (left), Me (middle), and Sam Friedman (right) are on standing on the site of the original structure at Hundisburg Castle, and we are presenting our design to the local news crews as well as the Landmarks Commission representative.

 Once the folly design was approved by Dr. Blanke of Castle Hundisburg, we began dressing the stones that would compose the doors and windows.  As previously mentioned, we were able to use stones that originally composed building elements on the property; therefore the working of these stones (assortment of limestone and sandstone) entailed cutting and fitting these stones together to meet the specified dimensions.  Fitting the stones together mainly required the ends of the stones to be worked flat with the occasional addition of a 90 degree fillet or straight for continuity.  The stones were cut with a 9” angle grinder and worked to flat using the traditional punch, claw and chisel method.

This picture shows the limestone that was removed from the old gardener's house on the Castle property.  We cut the stones to the correct length and worked to the edges flat to create a clean joint.

The overall dimensions of folly were designed to so that the structure is forms an L-Shape that is 7 meters long with the corner/turn being 3.5 meters long and a height of 9 meters.  In order to comply with the overall dimensions, the doorways were designed to be 2 meters high with an opening span of 90 centimeters.  These dimensions were decided by referencing other doorways on the castle grounds.  The exterior doorway on the traditional side of the folly was created by fitting an assortment of limestones and sandstones together to meet the design.  Distinction between the exterior and interior doorways was made by using a reddish brownstone for the interior doorway of the same dimensions.  The brownstone for one side of the doorway was cut so that two stones, each 1 meter tall by 25 centimeters wide met the 2 meter design.  Brownstones for the other side of the doorway were cut to be 25 centimeters tall and no more than 50 centimeters long to form a crisscrossed or stacked design to met the 2 meter height.

Windows of the time period were elongated or higher than wide with a brick or stone arch above, so it was decided that the window openings on the exterior and interior would be 120 centimeters high with an opening of 90 centimeters and a lentil spanning the top that extended approximately 10 centimeters into the rubble wall on each side.  Like the exterior doorway, the exterior windows were created by fitting historic stones, which had been previously worked, to meet the required measurements.  A distinction was made on the interior by allowing the rubble wall to form the interior supports of the windows with only a lentil spanning the top and a stone sill that would function as a bench seat. 

The pictures above and below show the exterior door (top) and brownstones that will comprise the interior door (bottom)

   

Towards the end of the 7 week internship, the windows and doorways were completed so attention turned to creating cornerstones for the folly.  The corner stones were made from the same reddish colored brownstone that was used for the interior door.   The sandstones were cut to be a no more than 25 centimeters high and a variable length.  A 2” chisel was used to create a tooled band that formed a border around the stone, and the face of the stone was punched to create an entirely new surface.

One of the first punch - faced cornerstones