Innovative solutions

Do you have special requirements? Has your architect unusual ideas that you have never seen realized in wood? Splendid: our technologists will not back away from any new challenge. In the past, our professional team has always found solutions to make even the most unusual wishes come true.

Special corner finishes, demanding window finishes, neoclassical blinds or combinations of materials usually avoided by constructors… Using innovative design and construction approaches, we create details that are felt as successful aesthetic solutions enhancing the quality of living spaces.

Have a look at some selected details developed thanks to the innovative solutions of our technologists.  

How is it possible to build a roof structure without using rafters and create a feeling of ease and airiness? For the attic ceiling in the event building at the Škrabec homestead in Ribnica, we have used a construction of massive wooden panels, coated with natural beeswax. The uniform surface is not interrupted by rafters thus enabling an active light design that enlarges and opens up the space.

The corner finishes that we at RIKO manufactured for the Sunny Studio centre in Ljubljana are a rare solution that we did not shrink away from due to our traditional craft skills. The larch façade elements designed by our woodcraft masters are curved at the corners and gently round off the façade.  

The façade at the wooden extension of the Kekec kindergarten in Ljubljana could also be called “three in one”. We are dealing with one of the most unusual and playful solutions that have been produced by RIKO and which we are particularly proud of. The colorfully coated wooden lamellas function both as blinds and special toys because they can be rotated and invite the youngest to create the external appearance of their kindergarten by themselves.

The large glass surface reaching from top to bottom at the front of the residential building required a special approach to find a solution. The large vertical wooden lamellas are rotatable and function both as a façade and a blind. We equipped it with a motor-drive, and the inclination (degree of openness) can be adjusted by remote control.

As the surface of the residential building was not straight, the RIKO professionals had to show quite a degree of inventiveness. By emphasizing the entrance door that entirely adapts to the slanting façade, a portal entrance was built and its corners refined by half-rounded soft finishes.

The residential building with a blend of wood and metal is a wonderful piece of evidence for the fact that wood can always be combined with other materials, even on the ceiling. The ceiling construction is wooden, complemented by metal girders. Similarly, metal also appears on the outside as the frame for the larch wood blinds.

The façade of the Sanger Institute in Cambridge is rebated over its upper corner and thus forms the border of a roof terrace. This is a demanding woodcraft solution requiring considerable precision where the vertical and horizontal lamellas meet.  It special function lies in the fact that, with its roof greenery, the building partially substitutes the inner garden “stolen” from the surrounding buildings.

Wood does not just form even lines and simple shapes. In the renovated part of the airport building at Slovenia’s largest airport, we have designed an airy ceiling from curved lamellas. Their shape follows the lines of an aerodynamic construction, interrupting the monotony of the large waiting area and gives the travelers the first feeling of flying. We have thus captured the symbolic connection between the airport and an aerodynamic shape in an interesting wooden ceiling.  

The customer wished to enlarge a residential house, however, without major interventions to the structure and without essentially reducing the green space. The cube that houses an additional bedroom hovers on five shining stainless steel pillars, creating a newly covered outside space beneath it.

Brise-soleil are modern sliding blinds made of wood placed over glass surfaces as a common substitute for classic window shutters. Their peculiarity and inherent design possibilities have convinced many customers. Brise-soleil can be used to liven-up a façade or, in contrast, as a functional element that entirely merges with the wooden building shell. They can be simple and operated by hand or motor-driven and adjustable by remote control. The customer is free to choose spruce, cedar or larch wood for the lamellas, as well as their size and type of control. Just a little imagination is needed and the brise-soleil will turn into an aesthetically accomplished element in your RIKO house.