Walter Segal

Who was Walter Segal?

Walter Segal was an architect who developed a system of self-build housing.

The Segal self-build method is based on traditional timber frame methods modified to use standard materials available today. It eliminates the need for wet trades such as bricklaying and plastering resulting in a light-weight method which can be built with minimal experience and are ecologically sound. The roofs tend to be flat with many layers of roofing felt, which allows the creation of grass-covered roofs. Foundations are minimal, often just paving slabs, the strength coming from the geometry of their construction. Segal houses have been compared to traditional Japanese houses.

Segal was born in 1907 and grew up in Berlin, Germany, as the son of the Romanian Jewish painter Arthur Segal, but spent the time of the First World War in Ascona, Switzerland close to an alternative community called Monte Verità. Walter Segal studied architecture among the pioneers of the Modern Movement in Berlin and Delft, Netherlands, and received his first commission in 1932 from a patron of his father, Bernhard Mayer, to built a small wooden holiday cabin in Ascona.