Project: House SPI
Architects: Spado Architects
Location: Carinthia, Austria
Area: 1,732 sq ft
Photographs by: Kurt Kuball
House SPI by Spado Architects
Spado Architects, an Austrian architecture firm, have designed a contemporary rendition of the traditional Alpine farmhouse in Carinthia, Austria.
House SPI is a two story home that creates 1,732 square feet of living spaces overlooking an absolutely breathtaking mountainous landscapes around a grassy meadow 3,000 feet above sea level. Its gabled exterior is clad in locally sourced larch.
The expressive silhouette of the contour building.
The property on which the building stands is situated around 1100 m above sea level on the Saualm in the Görtschitz Valley in Carinthia. The contractor wished for a new interpretation of an Alpine farmhouse, a contemporary interpretation of rural architecture.
The two-storey building is designed as a base in solid construction with an overlying timber frame construction. The ridge of the roof runs from north to south.
The projection of the upper floor to the south creates a covered patio on the ground floor and a covered outer area upstairs, which also acts as a sunshade towards the south for the full-surface glazing of the separable living room on this level.
The architecture relies on functionality and restraint and is characterised by its renunciation of the superfluous. Local larch was used for the wooden façade and the wooden roof. The roof pitch also corresponds with local conditions. By these means, associations are generated with rural architecture, such as mood, settled life, history, identity and homeland.
At this altitude, larch weathers to a silvery-grey and produces a natural patina that leads to the harmony between the building and the surrounding landscape.
