Haus-M | Exit Architects

The project is about a holiday house in Montafon, a valley in the south of the austrian region of  Vorarlberg. It is situated pretty high on a slope directed towards south and with a wonderful sight. The house, therefore, opens itself towards the sun and the views and remains almost completely closed to the north.

This region is internationally renowned for having adapted the wood tradition with the technical advances to achieve a contemporary architecture with traditional materials. Besides, Montafon is specially important for its wood production. So, the material was clear.

What was not so easy was the decision of making a clearly modern architecture. While in other parts of Vorarlberg contemporary architecture is since years deep accepted, this valley remains in this point pretty conservative. In fact, this is the first house of the area that adopts a radical modern aspect, what results provocative for some neighbors.

That means that, except the basement, the house is completely built with wood: walls, floors and facades. Due to its size, the circulation areas were minimized to get a compact but, at the same time, spatially rich distribution. We have also incorporated some programmatic elements of the traditional architecture, newly interpreted, like the porch and the balcony.