Description

This home for two people by Markus Thurnher near Bregenz offers a response to its various neighbours, which are metal-clad commercial containers and anonymous, formless houses with sloping roofs. The scale comes from the dwellings, the cubic form from the commercial development, but the result is still striking in its formally austere, ascetic succinctness. It has four almost completely closed sides of equal length, in other words a square ground plan, and hence shows a hermetic quality typical of commercial construction. But it is soon clear that this is a dwelling: the delicate lines of the horizontal timber cladding, left in its natural state, and the economical but large apertures with careful detailing give the use away. Thurnher’s formal reduction goes close to the limit but carefully avoids slipping off into banality. Spatial and architectural form are made to agree with the utmost consistency. Smooth surfaces, simple divisions, clear lines mean honesty here, of form, space and construction, integrating all three.

The functions are simply separated by division into a ground floor for cooking and living and an upper floor as a bedroom area with gallery and air space. The ground floor is completely closed except for two entrances. On the side where the largest open space in the plot is placed it acquires an area that belongs to both the interior and the exterior, which can be opened and closed in an amazing way. A sliding door appears as a wall component, either enclosing a cavity–which is part of the building volume–as a patio, or revealing a terrace section with large-scale glazing for the rooms behind. This light space, in combination with the internal air space above the living area, creates a surprising sense of magnanimity and makes it possible to ‘internalize’ living. The occupants can live towards the outside or the inside, according to mood or weather. The shape and position of the house’s main apertures confirm the architect’s desire not to ‘damage’ the wall area by punching out holes but to see the aperture as something cut out of the volume.‘The totality of simple form’ remains the principal theme of the design.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.