TIMBER STRUCTURE IN THE LANDSCAPE
VAST AND COSY
Photos: Philippe Ruault , Elias Grüner
ARCHITECTURE PRIZE OF THE STATE OF BURGENLAND 2018
JURY PROTOCOL
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House and Home
Once a place for a spruce forest, the place is now regaining its diversity, species richness and special features thanks to the design of the committed landlord and architects. The ensemble of formed cultural landscape with water, forest areas, fruit trees, residential house, courtyard, barn with summer kitchen and cellar rooms, cisterns and wells creates a charming new whole. In the multicultural context, the timber construction with surrounding veranda and wooden roof inside and outside gains a new dimension from the interplay of minimalist simplicity on the one hand and the abundance of multicultural beauty on the other.
On the living floor, the interior and exterior spaces with fabulous views are grouped around the central fireplace and the open kitchen. The proportions, materials and colours are coordinated, untreated larch wood and reused demolition bricks in the basement are constantly gaining character instead of ageing. The central masonry fireplace and the terrazzo floor bring a pleasant coolness into the interior of the wooden house.
The open living room offers cosy places to linger, the light and pathways through the house are as varied as the ensemble itself. Mysteriously hidden behind a cupboard door in the living floor is the "secret" staircase, which leads into one of the bedrooms with a spacious loggia under the roof.
The wooden house, built into the hillside, radiates a pleasant peace and clarity, perfectly integrated into the surrounding forest, partly self-sufficient - equipped with solar technology - the homestead uses and complements the qualities of the place and acts like a natural clearing.
WIDE AND COSY
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A wooded hillside, isolated location in southern Burgenland, hardly any building regulations.
A place to live in the middle of nature was created. The natural course of the terrain was used, the house was shaped according to the sun and the views of the gently rolling landscape. While the base floor is firmly stuck in the ground and thus offers cool bedrooms in a dry, hot climate zone, the living floor above hovers above the landscape.
Constructed in timber frame construction and high quality insulation with cellulose. The cantilevered perimeter veranda also serves as a natural protection against summer overheating.
The overall concept of the house is designed in such a way that the natural resources are used optimally and thus the yard can stand self-sufficiently as energy plus house in the landscape.
The house offers protection to the slope and opens up downhill to the landscape. The feeling of living is nest-like and the view from the inside rises into the wideness of the landscape.
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