CLIMATE ADJUSTMENT
IN THE RUSSIAN TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE
Latitudes 50-58,
longitudes 25-50.
Elevation - about 100-200 m above sea level.
Annual average temperature: 5C º. Annual average precipitations: 690 mm.
Warm summer, cold winter with abundant snow.
The stove is the heart of the house. Situated always in the center. It's the only part of the house built with bricks and has it's own foundation.
The stove is multifunctional. It serves the heating of the house, the cooking and also keeps the food warm for a long time, which enables everyone who comes in from the outside cold immediate aссess to hot food.
The area above the stove provides a warm sleeping space for the most respectable or the most weak members of the family. The thermal mass of the bricks allows retention of heat even when the stove is not in use.
THE STOVE
THE WOOD
Wood is the main building material. Everything except the stove is made of wood.
It's prepartion continues three years. In the first year, normaly in winter, the beams are cleaned and prepared in the forest and left to cure.
The following year notches are made at specific locations to enable smoth construction of the joints.
Only in the third year are the beams, prepared and ready for assembly, transported to the village, and the house is constructed there.
As one goes further North the winter lasts longer, and more precipitation is in the form of snow. The angle of the roof changes accordingly.
THE WINDOWS
Most of the windows face South. Ornamental wooden lattice-work not only amplifies the beauty of the house. It also serves to strengthen weak points where thermal bridges occur.
THE ROOF
THE ENTRANCE
Owing to the danger of fire in a wooden house all doors open outword.
Access to the house occurs in stages: a roofed entrance porch leads into a small room where outside clothes and shoes are removed. Only then does one enter the main living space organized around the stove.
