Bernd Steinhuber Architekt

House on Lake Zell

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

HOUSE ON LAKE ZELL

Steiner Architecture

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Flo Oberschneider, Ferdi Porsche

ARCHITECT
Max Sandner

MANUFACTURERS
Artemide, Bisazza, Viabizzuno, Flos

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Quercraft Gmbh

INSULATION CONSULTANT
Ingenieurbüro Rothbacher Gmbh

ONSITE SUPERVISION
Lautner Bauconsulting Gmbh

CONTRACTORS
Herzog Bau Gmbh

PHOTOGRAPHS
Florian Holzherr

AREA
450 M²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Zell Am See, Austria

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect. 

Pick up the cadaver of the word c-o-m-p-l-e-x and drive it to the Austrian Alps.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

Tucked away on Lake Zell is a house to which that royal among the has-beens of buzzwords, depleted of meaning from years of overuse, might genuinely apply.

The project’s starting point was formal and postmodern: Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath House (NJ, 1955). Thus the house’s pyramid hip roof sits on a square base. Thus the distribution of the ground floor. Thus the courtyard takes its cue from the opening in Kahn’s roof.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

But the base demanded primitive powers that the concrete blocks at Trenton would not provide. So monolithic concrete was summoned, fifty centimeters thick.

Monolithic with a sustainable twist: conventional concrete in the region relies on a two-layer scheme, with a non-reusable insulating material sandwiched in between. 

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

Instead, this house employs insulating concrete, where reused material is scattered in the mixture for thermal insulation.

The whole structure can safely decompose in the case of demolition. And having done away with the traditional insulating layer, window and door frames can be placed freely within the reveals.

Such thick walls afford a categorical impression of stability, which the design then revels in finding counterpoints to.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

Thus the litany of strategies to balance the taciturn polished concrete inside:

a lush yellow curtain in the basement, colorful curtains on the ground floor, a joyful carpet in the hallway above, bathrooms covered in bright colored tiles, and a waterproof curtain that wraps around the garage.

And articulating all three levels: a white, steel, spiraling staircase, as thin as possible, emphasizing the tones one hardly notes in the frigid concrete walls.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

But if the base looks to Kahn, the wooden first floor looks to the Far East.

The delicate shutters balance the heavy concrete below and provide a way to look out that is markedly different from that of the ground floor. More uncertain.

And when the shutters are pivoted on hot summer days, the openness of the first floor can be nearly absolute.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

Oddly, and despite the juxtaposition, the building manages to feel somewhat classical. Classical in the way it administers weight so that it sits and stares stately at the pristine lake and the old town across.

Classical in its shape. It is rather classical too because all elevations are nearly identical, their porticos right in the middle or slightly off-center.

It’s unexpectedly symmetrical, slightly Palladian, which could hardly be achieved were the garage not detached, and so what looks like a sleek lounge is in fact parking – a pavilion for the automobile.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

A sort of villa + folly solution and the tension between the two volumes end up determining where the entrance to the house is.

And accidentally the house also reminds one of Frank Lloyd Wright - Wright’s Westcott House (1908) and DeRhodes House (1906) principally, with their wooden first floors sitting on sturdier bases.

The strong whiff of Wright is of course a likely outcome of the invocation of Japan, Wright’s work being especially indebted to that country.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

But the foreign references have not sapped the Zell dialect from the project. Far from it. The Japanese quotation seems curiously at home.

And encouraged by Kahn’s Bath House, the design has avoided the temptation to disguise the pitched roof, as modern architecture tends to.

Instead, the house wears its steep slopes with pride. Nor is the overhang coy.

House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr
House on Lake Zell
© Florian Holzherr

It extends generously and plays with the wooden screens underneath, which seem like a natural progression in delicacy and craftsmanship from the neighboring houses half hidden in the Alpine woods.


House on Lake Zell
Plan - Basement
House on Lake Zell
Plan - Ground Floor
House on Lake Zell
Plan - First Floor
House on Lake Zell
Plan - Roof


House on Lake Zell
Elevation 1
House on Lake Zell
Elevation 2
House on Lake Zell
Section 1
House on Lake Zell
Section 2

Bernd Steinhuber Architekt
T +43 664 5460355
Bernd Steinhuber Architekt