The architect’s
house
Villa 3S — Graz (A)
A gorgeous property on the fringes of Graz Geidorf, a very limiting land-use plan and a very ambitious budget form the starting point for the planning of my own house.
Simple yet complex; clear but also playful; light and optimistic; small yet also big. A place that is architecturally distinct, yet eminently livable; unconventional and unique, yet still functional for everyday living – these are the attributes of my family’s future home.
One of the fundamental ideas was to incorporate the relatively large property into the living space, meaning to make the boundaries between house and garden as fluid as possible in order to extend the living space over the entire property.
This means as many subtle boundaries and transitions as possible between the inside and the outside: extensive glazing with very large sliding doors, terraces that lead onto the property, and sheltered areas serve to blur the borders.
The relatively strict land-use plan, that stipulated a saddle roof with a designated inclination, presented a further challenge. A folding begins at the seating platform on the southern terrace over the outside walls, continues over the roof, covers the building structure and thereby forms a “saddle roof” without taking on the appearance of a conventional saddle roof.
When open, large sliding doors between the separate rooms connect a fluid, complete spatial structure. With the sliding doors closed, each room maintains its intimacy and distinctiveness and also extends to its own outdoor area or access. For example, the bathroom has its own opaque terrace with an outdoor shower, which can be converted into an interior room with the aid of wide folding doors. Weather permitting, the bathroom space can be doubled in this way.
Different from every angle
This folding differentiates the separate areas in terms of space, thereby adding greater variety to the entire complex. As a result of the sense of space and “perspective” that this creates, the house looks different from every angle. The building is a solid brick construction with concrete walls and a reinforced concrete roof. This roof also serves as a thermal storage mass to provide a pleasant indoor climate and is covered with wood outside. This shades the planking and visually blends the terrace and roof into a unified whole.
