Barn red? Burnt umber? Redwood? Indian red? Smoked salmon? Windsor tan? Chestnut? Marron? Technically the colour is RAL 3016, and when applied on wooden boards it turns this family chalet into a kinky incarnation of regional timber-cladding, a cheeky expression of folk.
But from the old hotel to which the chalet attaches to like an appendix, the architecture draws no more. Other than the wooded exterior, it is a compositional non sequitur. It gainsays it - see the modified Diocletian window on the back which points to foreign styles.
The annex propounds an alternative way of being in the mountains of Zell am See. All wants for views are supplied profusely by outsize glass sheets on three of its four sides, just short from being full curtain walls.
On their wooden frames RAL 3016 has been applied with different levels of saturation to lend variety - an exercise in subtlety in spite the audacity of their redness. And in contrast to the distant, chilly polished concrete of the walls inside.
The double heighted interior houses the family’s living room and dining room in the ground floor. A curve in the mezzanine permits a small home-office and converses with the arc of the Diocletian window across, also referenced by the half-circle section of the steel pillar that supports the staircase. Bedrooms and kitchen remain on the body of the old structure, now rendered the primary host, the hotel proper, and which this very family runs.
Photos by Florian Holzherr
