architek[tour] tirol – der architekturführer für tirol

The former granary in the commercial area of Hall was converted into a transshipment center for wood pellets for an energy company and expanded to include a space for company events. The basic idea of the design was to place a crown on the existing tower and thus transform the anonymous commercial structure into an architecturally striking building. The two-story addition was encased in a filigree precast concrete façade, the grid of which refers to the structures found in the existing building.

The School Center in Hall in Tyrol by fasch&fuchs.architekten is part of a large number of schools realized by the architectural office that respond as contemporary statements to new educational concepts. Two secondary schools and the district special needs school were combined at one location in the immediate vicinity of Hall’s town center. Meshing with the outside space in a variety of ways, the new structure forms a flowing inner and outer educational landscape.

A center hitherto unique in Austria, the Hospice House Tyrol has been opened on the grounds of the State Hospital in Hall, bringing all the offers of the Tyrolean hospice community together under one roof. The project’s leitmotif is the flowing transition between the building and nature. In the midst of numerous trees stands an open and intimate house, zoned inside by courtyards.

A low structure, which is partially sunk into the ground and fluently blends into the landscape, arose as an extension to the "Tyrolean Vocational School for Landscaping, Spatial Design and Fashion” housed in parts of the Salesian women’s convent Thurnfeld in Hall. Three courtyards divide the building into the various areas of use, which are connected by an open access zone with adjoining rooms arranged like islands.

With the SFZ, a new building featuring restoration workshops, laboratories and workplaces was constructed in Hall for the collection holdings of the Tyrolean State Museums, which were previously stored in eleven individual depots. Based on the image of a treasure chest, Franz & Sue conceptualized a monolith largely closed to the outside which refers to the building’s function through the façade design. The interior is organized according to the onion principle: the outer ring accommodates the depots, a middle ring provides circulation, while the work rooms and studios are grouped around a large, green atrium in the core.

Behind Hall‘s outer city wall, Martin Scharfetter and Robert Rier created the new branch office of BTW. A stern façade grid and the dyed white cement lend the building, which is reminiscent of a villa in its type and scale, a classic impression that is broken up by the interplay of open and closed window fronts and the execution of the precast concrete components.

The research and teaching campus of the Eduard Wallnöfer Centre for medical innovation is situated in the middle of a spacious park near the Old Town of Hall.
The architects designed the abstract glass cube, which is accentuated by angular perforated sheet metal sun-blocking blades, as a forceful counterpoint to the surrounding park-scape. A two-storey assembly hall defines the center of the atrium-type building, which houses a private university and other educational institutions.

The general idea was to bridge the gap between the Old Town and the residential area farther to the east with a third university building along Milserstraße.
Thus, a classy student dormitory housing also a kindergarten was added to round up the EWZ campus. Just as the university building itself, the dormitory is designed as an atrium-type house. Around the open interior space, there is a cluster of social rooms for general use, with generously spacious terraces, while from their private rooms the students can look out into the park.

Next to the former Seeber tower hotel designed, in the Thirties, by Lois Welzenbacher, the architects placed a second solitaire whose shape, materials and colours boldly contrast with the older building. The Welzenbacher building, a white angular cube with balconies whose situation and shape suggest a circular movement, was beautifully retrofitted, and can now enter into an exciting dialogue with the new conical glass tower. At their base, the towers are linked by a building containing the lobby as well as a café and restaurant.

Hasegg Castle with the twelve-angle mint tower is the landmark of the town of Hall. Originally, it dates back to the 13th century, but had undergone rather chaotic growth over the centuries. With a few very intelligent and respectful interventions, it was possible to implant a museum. A "must see” is the historic mint tower with its two staircases which you now can enter using a new sculptural steel spiral staircase.

For the Dinkhauser packaging materials corporation, Lackner realized one of his last works. The lot sort of had grown with the enterprise, reorganizing it was an essential part of the task. So he added a new high-shelve storage area with unsupported steel frames stretching over 25 m to an existing shop. Large prefabricated concrete elements and triangular glass panels are the dominant elements that masterfully catch the attention of passers-by.

The very compact albeit, at the same time, very pervious ensemble close to the Old Town is home to a 10 class middle school, the Hall gymnastics association and the ice sports centre, thus having to combine various functions. In order to preserve as much as possible of the existing green spaces, the southern part of the lot only got an underground building, while all "daylight” functions are concentrated in a single transparent building that takes in, as it were, as much as possible of the surrounding landscape.

The hall with dominant 9 m high breccie columns, dating back to about the middle of the 19th century, is one of rather few still existing remnants of a once flourishing salt industry in Hall. Very subtle interventions sufficed to change it into a fine arts hall, with a smaller north wing added. Together with another saltworks building which was turned into a "media tower” by Schlögl & Süß, the revitalized monument of industrial archeology suggests a new town gate.

The older house in the Abbey Garden (Stiftsgarten), built 1979-86, was a pioneer masterpiece of considerate and respectful high quality care for seniors: Very close to the town centre, resembling a small city quarter consisting of rows of buildings along a green lane. Later additions, then, were the Seidner garden house, embracing a green square open towards the south, and the atrium-type Magdalenen garden house. Together, they form an ensemble of three self-sufficient care centres, with their different typologies, materials and facades underlining the autonomy of every single building.