Danwood:
Building your dream home
Contemporary values, respecting tradition

About Danwood

Twenty-five years ago, in the place where Danwood houses are built today, the only sounds that could be heard were the wind and the grain swaying in the fields. Today, Danwood thrives there, a large, modern company and one of the most prominent producers of prefabricated timber-frame constructions in Europe, offering its customers stylish, energy-efficient timber-frame homes with the option of a full turnkey construction service.

Two custom-built factories, equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology, host the production of around 2,000 Dan-Wood houses per year.

Dan-Wood employs over 2,300 people to build its range of homes.

Among them are over 300 engineers and architects, over 400 employees working on the production of structural elements in our factories, and over 1,000 people making up our highly skilled and experienced assembly and finishing crews.

We believe that Danwood houses are only as good as the skills and dedication of our employees. This is why we constantly work to improve their skills and knowledge.

The Danwood Training Centre was created specifically for this purpose. Under the watchful eye of the best professionals, and using the latest technologies, we regularly conduct professional development training which enables our employees to reach the highest levels of professionalism, and to achieve true mastery in the art of construction.

We also invest heavily in the latest production technology to continuously improve the quality of our product. Because of this commitment, we are proud to say that we have now built over 17,000 houses.

Our houses can be found throughout Europe, in Germany, Austria, Poland, Great Britain and Switzerland.

The structural components for nearly 30 houses leave our two factories every week. At the same time, on nearly 200 sites across Europe, specialised construction teams are realising our clients' dreams of building their own home.

Although the Dan-Wood House brand originally comes from Denmark, our houses have been produced in a unique place in Poland for 25 years, the province of Podlasie.

This is the eastern region of Poland, famous for producing talented construction professionals whose skills of working with wood, and respect for this unique material, have been developed for many generations. It's here that centuries ago, wooden construction developed naturally, undoubtedly due to the amazing forests and the area's greatest natural treasure, the Białowieża Forest.

Today, the Białowieża Forest is under well-deserved protection. Danwood has great respect for nature and a commitment to maintaining woodlands in their natural state. This is why Danwood is proud to financially support the protection of this unique place.

The Białowieża Forest

Zdjęcie: Adam Wajrak

The Białowieża Forest is symbolic of Poland's natural landscape, and the last natural forest in the European Lowland. It was created without human intervention and is the only 'natural' property in Poland on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its natural importance can be compared with such wonders as Yellowstone National Park, Serengeti or the Great Barrier Reef. Her distinguishing features are the magnificent and dignified bison that live there, and oak trees which are several hundred years old.

Of course, there are richer forests in the world than the Białowieża Forest, and in Europe we have other natural forests, or those slightly changed by man. But it is the Białowieża Forest that is unique.

Why is it unique?

The Białowieża Forest is Europe's best preserved temperate zone natural forest which exists in one large fragment. Many such forests have been cut down and there are no longer any temperate zone natural forests left in Europe or North America.

Zdjęcie: Adam Wajrak

There is no doubt that the forest survived thanks to the bison – unusual animals and the last representatives of the European megafauna.

These European bison, also known as wisents, were protected by the crowned heads and it was thanks to this that they avoided the fate of aurochs (wild cattle) and tarpans (wild horses). The forest was the last refuge, apart from the Caucasus, of the largest European mammals, which could weigh as much as a ton. It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that the forest began to be transformed into a commercially viable forest. Fortunately, even despite the wounds man has inflicted on it for the last 100 years, it is still a unique forest, shaped by natural processes. Thankfully, today it is left alone to return to its former glory and the bison, thanks to being looked after in zoos and private farms, have been able to survive there as a species. Today, the largest herd of these animals in the world lives here, and is a major tourist attraction.

Zdjęcie: Adam Wajrak

Oak trees are the king of the forest.

The most powerful oak in the Białowieża Forest grows in such a thicket that you can barely see its crown, but its trunk, with a circumference of over seven metres, is truly impressive. This tree is known as Maciek and grows in the protected reserve of the Białowieża National Park. Białowieża oaks are not exceptionally thick, but grow very high. Maciek is over 40 metres high. Europe's highest known oak also grows here – it is nearly 44 metres high! Forest oaks can live for up to 650 years.

It's thanks to large trees like these that the forest ecosystem works so efficiently. The trees produce thousands of tons of seeds. In the harvest years, which happen once every six to nine years, giant oaks can shed about five tons of acorns per hectare. Sheltered from light, the forest floor is poor in food, but the seeds and acorns fall to the ground and help to support life.

Voles and mice breed, then feed on weasels, martens and owls, including the smallest European owl. And because rodents, especially mice, love to plunder bird nests, small birds like flycatchers are threatened. In turn, the leaf warblers nesting in arbors built on the ground, simply give up breeding when they see so many rodents. These years of abundance, interspersed with years of hunger, are like heartbeats pumping blood in the forest's ecosystem. This heart is made of large oaks, but also lindens, hornbeams and spruces.

Zdjęcie: Adam Wajrak

The forest and its wealth are not without dead trees. It's assumed that in the natural forests of our climate zone, around a third of trees will be dead. In this way, the forest is very similar to a coral reef, whose grate, on which the richness of life is based, also consists of both living and dead corals. And here, as on the reef, thanks to dead trees and their parts, you can see unusual organisms.

Of course, woodpeckers are the most common and can be seen everywhere. All European species live in the forest, from the largest black woodpecker to the smallest woodpecker.

Dead trees are also used by owls, which are eager to occupy hollows created by the three-toed woodpecker. The smallest European owls are about the size of a starling and are mainly active during the day.

Hollows cut out by the largest woodpecker – the black woodpecker – are often occupied by boreal owls that have a funny surprised expression on their faces.

Dead trees are crucial for the rebirth of the forest.

Spruces and alders grow on lying logs, called hubs. Where there are a lot of dead trees and lying logs, oaks can be reborn without fear of being eaten by deer, as the danger of them being attacked by wolves and lynx when doing so is too great.

Zdjęcie: Adam Wajrak

Thanks to the fact that we have dead trees and large predators here, the forest has survived for thousands of years. Although death can be seen at every turn, new life is always close by. This is the eternity of the Białowieża Forest.

Danwood financially supports the protection of this unique place.

Adam Wajrak

Adam Wajrak

Adam Wajrak is a Polish journalist and activist for nature protection, having written many articles and books on nature. Since 1997, he has been living permanently in the Białowieża Forest. He has been recognised many times for his work, receiving amongst others the title of Honorary Friend of the Białowieża Forest, granted by the Society for the Protection of the Białowieża Forest, and the distinction of Hero of Europe (2005), granted every year by the American magazine Time for defending the natural environment.

The tradition of wood construction in Podlasie

Zdjęcie: Artur Gaweł

In the past, the Białowieża Forest and other forests in Podlasie were a natural source of wood, a first-class building material and the main reason for the development of wooden construction in the area.

Even a hundred years ago, wood was used almost exclusively for building many structures including residential and farm buildings, manors, religious buildings, industrial buildings (windmills, water mills, forges and sawmills), as well as public buildings such as stations, taverns, or schools.

Zdjęcie: Artur Gaweł

A number of other, smaller structures, such as farm buildings, basements, wells, smokehouses and fences with gates, were also built of wood.

By using a natural building material, these structures fit harmoniously into the rural landscape.

The house was always the most important building on the farm.

Zdjęcie: Artur Gaweł

In the nineteenth century, residential buildings most often had hipped thatched roofs. Another common type of roof was the smoke roof, such as on a hen house or other buildings without chimneys.

Internally, there were mainly two types of house in the west of Podlasie – a cottage-type or 'threefold' and the so-called 'two', also called a double house.

In a 'threefold 'building, as well as a main room and kitchen, there was also a hall and an alcove. As the name implied, in a 'two' there were two chambers, two alcoves, a chamber and a hall. On the other hand, in the east of Podlasie, residential buildings under one roof had a farm part, usually serving as a livestock farm. Their length could exceed 40 metres. Resinous pine wood was used to construct houses, and sometimes oak was used for laying foundations. In addition to wood, field stones for foundations and clay for furnace construction and floor poles were also needed.

Zdjęcie: Artur Gaweł

After World War I, villages that had been destroyed were rebuilt in a different style.

The houses were larger and usually had a larger layout of rooms. The gable roofs were covered with tiles. Porches or verandas were placed at the external doors. Not just places to live, these houses were also built to express the social status of their owners.

One of the more characteristic features of these residential buildings was their rich ornamentation with details cut with a narrow saw blade, known as a ‘laubzega’. Decorated houses were distinguished not only by their properly selected proportions, but also by the mutual harmony of decorative details, such as under- and over window sills, corners, under-eaves strips, and windbreakers.

The most beautifully decorated surface was always the top of the house, especially if it was facing a road passing through the village. The fashion for architectural ornamentation lasted until the sixties. Many richly decorated buildings are located in the villages around Bielsk Podlaski, Narew and Zabłudów.

Artur Gaweł PhD

Artur Gaweł PhD

Dr Artur Gaweł is an ethnographer and certified curator. From 1990-2016 he worked at the Białystok Village Museum and in 2016 he became the director of the Podlasie Museum of Folk Culture. He has written many articles on the ethnography of Podlasie, and his books include Decorating wooden houses in the Bialystok region; Customs, rituals and agrarian beliefs in the Bialystok region from the mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century; Ceremonial Year in Podlasie, and Birds of prey and owls in culture.