Caged in? Inventive house solutions are not restricted to dense urban conditions, as this suburban example demonstrates, making a mockery of local planning codes.

Clearly antagonised by 'banal local design statutes' that were apparently 'incapable of advancing architectural culture', architect Titus Bernhard is proud of the message that this house has brought to the inhabitants of Augsburg in south-east Germany. As part of a mission to challenge convention, this curious gabion house was devised to undermine and exploit the sort of prescriptive rules and regulations that, when ignorantly enforced by the visually illiterate, achieve little more than to perpetuate mediocrity.

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Bernhard's client specifically asked him to design a house in this area; however, from his descriptions of its overcrowded and characterless environment, you sense that the architect would probably have preferred to build elsewhere. Nevertheless, after considering the site he saw an opportunity to make a positive statement; an opportunity to make a small contribution to a broader issue by stimulating debate and raising suburban aspirations. With hindsight, however, it is fair to say that both architect and client had completely underestimated the strength of feeling that existed.

The codes specified footprint and silhouette, limiting the house to a 9x9m plot and stipulating a regular pyramidal roof. Bernhard took these as his starting point, building right up to the limit within a square floor plan, and working with the traditional pitched roof form. He sought to make the house unique through its detailed execution and distinctive use of materials; he also distorted the roof with an eccentrically placed peak, yielding to a large tree and providing what he refers to as an 'inhabitable sculpture' for his client. The distinctive gabion rain screen encases the concrete superstructure, and contains local Dolomite stone. With 70 per cent of facade costs met by participating firms, approximately 40 000 stones were used to fill the 365 hand-filled cages; weighing an astonishing 28 tonnes.

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While the house may on first impressions appear to be a bit of a one-liner, relying solely on its novel use of hanging gabions, the architect does allude to a number of more subtle gestures. In contrast to its rough exterior, the interior spaces are flooded with light, and are crisply detailed, with three habitable floors and a basement compressed within the building's two-storey carcass. Entering into an open plan living/ kitchen/dining space, each of the three levels is connected by two offset voids. These, with specifically located windows, allow the changing seasons to animate the internal spaces, resulting in the modest 128sqm house feeling significantly bigger that its form suggests; to neighbouring onlookers, however, the house was far from inconspicuous.

During construction there were many disputes, with approximately 80 per cent of people being against its completion. The nature of the facades, and the stone clad roof were particularly contentious, and the architect and client engaged in extensive disputes with the authorities, drawing the attention of the Mayor.

Eventually, however, opinion did change, following an open day that attracted, literally, coach loads of interested observers as if drawn to a caged freak show. With guided tours by the client and architect, people were invited to acquaint themselves with the house and with this many became more sympathetic to its strong image. Bernhard too seems to have changed his opinion of the neighbouring community.

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