House in Röthis

Klaus-Peter Gast

Description

A sloping plot with a wonderful mountain panorama was the starting point for a family home in Vorarlberg. The architect Ivan Cavegn used this drop in height for the disposition of his two building sections: a concrete block rams itself into the slope, at the top are carport and main entrance, below ancillary rooms and a studio, and at right angles to this a timber-clad cube facing due south. This is the living area, and Cavegn chooses a somewhat unusual constellation for the rooms. Kitchen and dining room are placed separately upstairs, immediately after coming in, and then the bedrooms and living area are combined on the ground floor. The entrance axis also leads to the studio opposite. It is very quickly clear why Cavegn allocated the space as he did: the spectacular view over the town into the sweep of the mountain landscape opens up for the first time–completely enclosed–from the living room, but is particularly impressive when seen from the large terrace above. In this way the architect creates two living rooms, placed one above the other in the same dimensions, and directly including the magnificent natural surroundings according to weather conditions. Thus the scenery becomes an orchestrating component for the terrace space.

The way the terrace is ‘framed’ makes it clear that it counts as an integral space within the house in its own right, as the outline of the building section includes the open-air area. Cooking, eating and ‘living in nature’ become an attractive ensemble, rich in experiences, upstairs, linked to the enclosed living area below by the air space of the staircase. The choice of materials here allots ‘distinct’ spatial attachments: kitchen, dining area and the entire living/sleeping area with bathroom downstairs are equipped with homogeneous surfaces throughout by means of multiplex birch panels, while the attached open-air terrace is completely structured with larch cladding. ‘Similar, but not the same’ is the motto here for the subtle indication of function distinctions through choice of materials, though this is handled much more radically in the contrast between the function distinctions between the living section and the rough exposed concrete of the adjacent building. A projected display window for the studio as a timber frame attempts to make an approach, and so these two externally unequal parts again become a tension-filled pair, a unit.