If ever a client exists that would want to flaunt the versatility of wood, it is Damiani-Holz & Ko (DH&K), a timber construction company in the light-industrial district of Bressanone, Italy. DH&K wanted a building that “represented what they do in an innovative way and that just stood out and said, ‘Wood,’ ” says Sandy Attia, founding partner of local firm MoDus Architects.

Housing a customer service area, office space, and a multipurpose room, the four-story, 12,885-square-foot building features wood framing, floors, ceilings, and stairs. But its most prominent element is its exterior, which comprises 424 geometric plywood fins that wrap the structure’s walls and roof and mimic the towering pallets of boards and planks in DH&K’s lumberyard. “These big, very monolithic blocks—almost like mini buildings of wood—were our inspiration,” Attia says. Designed using Maxon Cinema 4D Studio, Autodesk 3ds Max, and other software, each uniquely shaped fin in the series contributes to the undulating pattern that becomes the building’s seemingly continuous outer skin.

The exterior skin has two layers, both made from Kerto, a laminated veneer lumber (LVL) product from Finland-based Metsä Wood (formerly Finnforest). The 6,060-square-foot base layer comprises 156 0.83-inch-thick sheets of Kerto, which are finished in a dark stain and treated for weather and fungal resistance. Perpendicular to these panels are the lighter-color curvilinear fins. Juxtaposed together, the different hues add depth of the cube-shaped building. “We were … interested in working with the kind of duality between the lightness and heaviness of wood,” Attia says.

The headquarters has elevated DH&K’s marketing efforts. “It totally raised the bar on their business,” Attia says. “They’ve become a tourist site for architects and for engineers … [who are] interested in learning how to use wood in their projects.”