architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

Der kaum genutzte Garten eines Einfamilienhauses wurde für eine qualitätsvolle Nachverdichtung genutzt, die aus einem neuen Arbeitsraum entlang der Grundstücksgrenze und einer kleinen Turmwohnung besteht. Die mit ideenreichen, handwerklich präzise umgesetzten Detaillösungen ausgestatteten neuen Bauteile wurden so angeordnet, dass ein kleines Ensemble aus Alt und Neu ringförmig den atriumartigen, abgesenkten Innenhof umschließt.

Das Rimml-Areal stand jahrzehntelang leer, bis es die Gemeinde erwarb und als neues Gemeindeamt revitalisieren ließ. Bei der Transformation des 400 Jahre alten Ensembles verfolgten die Architekten die Prämisse, die Bedürfnisse von heute mit den Erzählungen des Bestandes zu verbinden. Der mittlerweile denkmalgeschützte Gasthof wurde behutsam restauriert und adaptiert, der Pavillon und die Kegelbahn wurden instand gesetzt und die ehemalige Holztenne als Kulturstadl reaktiviert.

In order to create a contemporary rehearsal venue for the Wilten Boys' Choir, the idea of building on top of the petrol station on the grounds of the monastery of Wilten was born. A largely closed structure overhangs the fuel station on the street side and appears self-confident with its continuous outer skin of natural copper sheeting. The rehearsal room upstairs is illuminated and ventilated via an atrium, and a small pub is integrated into the petrol station downstairs.

As a contribution to the careful use of soil as a resource, the supermarket chain MPREIS has built a food market in Volders, whose roof serves as a construction site for a high-quality residential building. Both functions are clearly separated from each other and designed differently as a result. The roof area around the residential building was greened and equipped with a community terrace.

With the P3, PEMA Holding is building its third tower in Innsbruck, directly opposite the Adambräu. The architects realised a slender building consisting of a four-storey base and a 10-storey structure, which forms a clear end to the station area. Hotel "Motel One" is located in the tower, and the "reiter design" showroom and office spaces are located in the base.

Ausgehend von der Auseinandersetzung mit den Qualitäten einer historischen Altstadt platzierte die Architektin drei in ihrer Form und Größe in die gewachsene Struktur eingefügte Baukörper mit 55 Wohnungen, Flächen für mehrere Dienstleister und einem Café. Insgesamt entstand ein lebendiges, von einem gassenartigen Wegenetz durchzogenes Quartier mit einem abwechslungsreichen äußeren Erscheinungsbild und klaren Bezügen zu identitätsstiftenden Gebäuden der Stadt.

The new town hall in Nauders emerged - like many others - from a competition supported by the Tyrolean Village Renewal. A compact exposed concrete structure with a light gable roof gives the community an appropriate presence through its form and height development. Between the new building and the former town hall from the 1950s, which has now been repurposed, an attractive village square has been created.

As the end result of an invited architecture competition, the multi-functional P2 building connects private and public interests as an urban hybrid. The pointed, almost 50-meter-high tower contains apartments, and the two-story base building provides space for the Innsbruck City Library, which features several reading zones and an event hall. In between, there is a public space designed as a reading deck, accessible via two flights of stairs, which invites visitors to linger without any pressure to consume.

The redesign of the village center in Patsch arose out of a community development process with an associated architecture competition. On the northern edge of the property, a building for the community office, based in terms of its dimensions and materiality on the existing development, and a music pavilion on the southern edge, were erected. Together with the former parish hall, which has been transformed into a clubhouse, and the new village square, the residents gained a lively meeting place.

For several years, the municipality of Mils has been engaged in the question of how to stimulate the town centre, an area that has become less attractive. After the revitalisation of a farm for the municipal office and the extension of the primary school, most recently a mixed-use "village centre" was created with a high-rise building for "assisted living" and two low structures for a café and parish hall. These are connected by a flying roof, which - closed to form a rectangle - defines a roofed "square on the square".

Instead of two existing buildings south and east of St. Paul’s Church, the NEW HEIMAT TIROL constructed a social pastoral center for the parish of St. Paul, as well as a residential building with approx. 70 rental apartments. Marte.Marte Architekten place the comprehensive space allocation program in three loosely arranged structures around the church, which, in their entirety, also act as the new neighborhood center for Innsbruck-Reichenau.

For a long time, a gap stood on Wiltener Platzl, a small square in the immediate vicinity of the listed Liebenegg Manor. This empty site was convincingly closed with an angular structure marked by two high points. Public and semi-public uses are located on the ground floor, while small, handicapped-accessible apartments for senior citizens can be found on the upper floors.

The "Stuemergründe” village center, designed by Rainer Köberl and Daniela Kröss, emerged as the winning project of a novel competition procedure with the intensive involvement of the residents of Fließ. Their project breaks up the complex spatial allocation plan—from the village hall, to a doctor’s office and commercial space, right up to apartments—into three different structures. Developed in reference to the small-scaled village structure, the buildings are arranged on the building lot in such a manner that attractive square sequences and vistas were created.

With the club house—the result of an EU-wide competition—the architects created a new entrance hall on the southern entry into the community of Zirl. A sequence of several variously high construction dimensions, whose scale is oriented to the existing structure and forms distinct spatial edges, arose for the different functions. A two-story foyer, designed as a type of "village square” lying in the building, acts as the central link.

In order to meet the need for child care places, the community wished for an annex building near the existing nursery school – with a small village café and able to be used multi-functionally by clubs. Designed by Martin Scharfetter and Robert Rier, the new "House for Children” calmly complements the existing building structure – church, parish house and town hall with a nursery school –, scales itself back, places itself on display, forms a lane and opens this up to the newly created village square.

Erected directly behind the Triumphal Arch in the 1980s, the "Möbelhaus Greif” ("Greif Furniture House”) was converted after several user changes into a residential, office and shop building. The paramount goal of the conversion measures was to react with a conservatively designed structure at a prominent location in the middle of historical buildings. Among other things, the structured concrete-prefab façade was taken down and replaced by a considerably more toned-down façade design, which enables the texture of its thick mineral plaster surface to haptically emerge.

In the place of a building destroyed by a fire, a central village square, which had been missing up to then, could be realized between the church, village hall and private buildings. What emerged is a calmly designed open space with a high amenity value that can be used for most diverse activities in the village. Additionally situated in a renovated house on the square is a small grocery store which, as a local supplier, significantly contributes to the vitalization of the village center.

A place designed exclusively for the locals and their extremely active club life – the St. Nikolaus Community Cultural Center – emerged in the "tourist metropolis” of Ischgl. The defining element is an accessible roof landscape under which large parts of the cubature – such as the band rehearsal room edged into the slope as a wooden box – disappear. Together with a "parlor” available to all the clubs, the new music pavilion and a ramp with seating steps, a new village square has opened up.

In the past years, a new, populous residential quarter emerged between Reichenauerstraße and the Sill-Inn estuary. The "Eugenpark” with its distinctive tower forms the gateway to this new quarter and at the same time provides the necessary infrastructure and a new meeting place to the new residents with a supermarket that features a café. Three variously high buildings – the one-story supermarket, an L-shaped, flat-roofed structure with three residential stories and the eleven-story tower — creatively form a unit that consciously subverts the otherwise solitary character distinctive of high-rises.

For a long time the village hall, primary school and clubs such as the band and the fire brigade were housed in a building on the village square. With the new construction of a multifunctional community center and the adaption of the existing building, the most diverse uses were disentangled and given the necessary spatial enlargement. The new structure, erected in the monastery garden and enveloped in a wooden façade, integrates itself into the existing village ensemble and nonetheless self-confidently appears as a village hall.

"WODOP” is an example of how the revitalization of a village center can succeed out of private initiative. A meeting place for the populace was created with a food market and a bakery with a café. The "starter apartments” on the upper floors are to offer the young generation the incentive to remain in the village. Especially worth noting is that the builder dispensed with some of the rentable spaces so that a canopied outdoor area, which acts as "mini village square,” could emerge.

In order to give space to the active club and cultural life, the community of Kals decided on constructing a new event center with a hall that seats over 300 people. Schneider and Lengauer realized an elongated building which follows the course of the road, is docked onto the old Ködnitzhof inn, and, with its steep saddle roof and the precisely placed openings, makes reference to the rectory.

The centerpiece of the multifunctional building complex planned by henke und schreieck Architekten for PEMA Holding is a 49-meter tower with a design hotel, restaurant and publically accessible scenic terrace. Attached to this tower, which characterizes the cityscape, is a five-story, slightly pitched structure that provides tenants with well-lit spaces by means of generous courtyards and atria.

In the new building, which resulted from an architectural competition held by "Dorferneuerung Tirol” a state organization dedicated to village renewal in Tyrol, two different uses are accommodated on two levels. The Volunteer Fire Department received a modern operations center, situated at ground level and oriented to the access road. Lying above this component, which was built with steel-reinforced concrete and partially dug into the slope, is the club house, executed as a timber construction. Featuring a festival area attached on the same level, it provides an attractive setting for the community’s active club life.

With the goal of revitalizing a hitherto deserted inner city district, two new buildings were erected on the area between Unterer Stadtplatz and "Fischergries” in place of the stock structures: on one hand, a shopping mall dotted with cafés and restaurants (KISS –Kufsteiner Innenstadt Shopping) and featuring office spaces and apartments on the upper stories; on the other hand, an L-shaped structure with apartments oriented towards the Inn and an event hall. A clearly defined market square, designed as a "shared space”, arose between the new buildings, the Bastion and the banks of the Inn.

The redevelopment of the village square, lying in close vicinity to the church, led to the creation of a closed, variously usable spatial situation instead of the formerly unstructured public space. The music pavilion, including a bar and toilets, was housed in an elongated, angled structure which, as the "backbone,” offers the square the necessary protection against wind and noise.

Over the years, a heterogeneous development emerged around a listed hall from the late 19th century on the Innsbruck Trade Fair grounds. Emanating from this old "Hall B”, the ARGE Cukrowicz Nachbaur and Bechter Zaffignani added a new, one-story exhibition hall and an overhanging structure set on top of it, marking the new main entrance to the Trade Fair grounds.

In the west of Innsbruck a new building was constructed as a public private partnership, whereby a shopping centre and a school, facilities with completely different forms of use, have been accommodated. In a clearly defined building, which provides the surrounding urban area – including an industrial estate and heterogeneous structured residential developments – with a new identity, the two users each have their own, developed for their individual requirements, completely separate areas.

This multipurpose building arose between the primary school and the nursery school. It features a gymnasium for the primary school, a music rehearsal space and a foyer with a restaurant, which the multi-functionally utilized hall can be flowingly accessed from via a grandstand. In order to minimize the visible cubature and to integrate the small-scaled context, a large part of the volume is recessed into the ground. A walkable roof deck, which forms a slightly inclined slope, spans the elongated building.

In the center of Kufstein, the City Hall and the neighboring "Bildsteinhaus” were transformed into a new, multi-functional unit for the city administration. The historic ensemble was interwoven with consciously placed interventions into a complex whole. The uncovered city wall builds the foundation; a white "crown” on the roof completes the ensemble.

A new community centre cum village square between to churches and adjacent slope, have been developed in the middle of Kappl in place of both the former lower secondary school and the old local authority. The design and height development of the three "U” shaped buildings around the square take the church and the small village structures into consideration.

At 2000 metres above sea level, the "Freiraum Ahorn” offers what the name (open space) promises: Open space in the sense of a comprehensive offer of space for the cable lift company staff, this being concealed on the ground floor under a concrete slab, and, open space in the sense of a place of peace and relaxation for guests, enabling them to enjoy a lounge-atmosphere and panorama view in a large guest room situated in a bridge-like building above.

The "Altes Kino” ("Old Cinema”) in Landeck, built by Hans Illmer in 1927, has been a cultural center for many years. After the adjacent club house was torn down, a town square that is surrounded on three sides by a brace made of white exposed concrete and glazed on one side arose in its place. Offices are situated at the front side of the new building; the two-story component attached to the cinema is used as a cultural café. The listed cinema was renovated, the attic above the cinema laid open and adapted for public utilization.

With the revitalization of the Felixe Minas House, erected in 1698, one of the most valuable cultural-historic buildings in the Tannheim Valley could be utilized as a multifunctional cultural center. The existing structure underwent a complete renovation and was expanded with an annex wrapped in a shingled façade, in which a rehearsal room for the community band was created. A single-story concrete building with a main entrance and foyer acts as a link between the old and the new.

In the course of the conversion and extension, the congress, administration and information center erected in the late-1970s was given a completely new appearance. The previously rather heavy and stolid seeming building was transformed into a bright, crystalline structure that places a clear accent between the traditional Tyrolean houses. The spatial offer was significantly expanded and newly organized, whereby the second largest event center in Tyrol now has four action levels at its disposal.

Tux-Lanersbach is a characteristic village shaped by tourism in which the "Lederhosen style” continues to dominate. The decidedly contemporarily designed event center clearly sets itself apart from this environment. Under a sculpturally formed "bonnet,” enveloped with fiber cement shingles, spaces for the tourism association and the mountain rescue squad, a café, rehearsal rooms, as well as the large event hall are located. Towards the street side the structure acquiesces scale-wise into the surroundings. The hall’s large volume is distinctly readable towards the valley floor.

Community facilities as well as numerous clubs were housed in the old "Community Forum” built in the 1960s (architecture: Hans Buchrainer). Both of these functions were separated when it was expanded by a town office. The "Community Forum” was renovated and correspondingly adapted to the needs of contemporary club life. Erected in a sensitive handling of the local scale, the "Town Office” was placed in front of the existing building so that a "market square” was created towards the street.

Developed due to the spatial and architectural circumstances of the village, the KiWi has now become the new village point of interest. Three clearly detectable, independently functioning parts of the building – event hall, inn and community museum – are connected by means of a long stretched out foyer. Despite their clear contemporary shapes, the new buildings blend in naturally with the established structure due to their materiality, colour and dimensions. The inn, the Kirchenwirt, which is under historic protection, was returned to its original condition and carefully integrated into the overall plan.

The development of the former "Bürgerlichen Brauhaus” area consists of a bipartite outer edge construction on the Ing.-Etzel-Straße, an "education tower” to the west of this for the BFI (institute for further advanced vocational training) and behind each other, two "town blocks” with service zones for the insurance companies on the ground floor. In addition to this there are office spaces and flats on the upper floors. Despite the size of the project, various materials, differing facades and the design of the open space, all played a part in the creation of the heterogeneous urban accommodation.

The Fire Brigade and the Schwaz Mountain Rescue Operations Centre is situated directly next to the Inn and the motorway approach road. The building is mainly at the rear of the grounds thus leaving a large amount of space at the front for the emergency vehicles. The dominant part of the building tiered down towards the river and promenade, is the 18 metre high glass hose-tower, which makes the building’s function visible from quite a distance.

In the place of a former inn, Margarethe Heubacher-Sentobe and Günther Dregelyvari designed a clear and self-evidently acting new building in which the various sections of the population – with and without impairments – and different social and communicative facilities were brought together. What emerged was a lively place for people of all age groups, with an afterschool care center for school children and a senior citizens’ room, an inn and a local grocer’s shop, as well as apartments for young families, for assisted living and a living community for handicapped people run by the Lebenshilfe. At the same time it became the center of Schwaz’s "Dorf” district, one that had been missing until then.

With the new construction of a club house and the concomitant redesign of the village square, a common center was created for the residents of the widely scattered community of Assling, which is made up of 18 hamlets. The existing buildings arranged around the square were bound together by means of an exposed concrete podium with a back wall and roof. The club house, which completes the newly created square in the northeast, was erected adjacent to it.

The winning concept for the rehearsal, practicing and performance square for the village and its club, which was planned under the key note "give the festival a structure”, was selected from the architectural contest for the village’s regeneration. The main part is a passe-partout type roofed gallery which contains the copper panelled club house and festival-square with stage and, at the same time is a landscape viewing platform.

Starting from the privileged location of the plot as a part of the large, green "Tivoli Lung”, Helmut Reitter carried out a permeable development according to the basic principle of "Pavilions in the Park”. The elongated structure of the "House of Children” and its counterpart, the compact cube of the "Youth Center”, offer the children and young adults spaces that create diverse visual bonds to each other, with the public park and the senior citizens’ home opposite of it.

Environmentally-conscious thinking and acting have been strongly emphasized in the community of Karrösten for many years. The village house itself, which houses the village office, a multipurpose hall, as well as a nursery school and apartments, did not meet this requirement at all. The renovation concept, which resulted from an architecture competition, not only brought the existing stock from the1960s up to a passive house quality regarding energy efficiency, but also improved the whole spatial structure around the village office, which was relocated as the connecting middle point on the ground floor.

Built on a lot opposite the town hall, the Cultural Center consists of a monolithic, formally independent structure that creates an identification point in the heterogeneously developed community. Sitting above a pervious ground floor is a protruding, closed upper floor with a multifunctional event hall that is shaped in such a way that the large volume does not appear in its full height from the street side.

The new centre of the Olympic Village, the winning project of a Europan competition, is said to be, and really is, a textbook example of urban density added to a pre-existing tissue, injecting also new meaning and creating a new identity for "suburbia”. The L-shaped building consists of a lower part containing shopping areas and public institutions like a kindergarten and a 16-storey residential tower, and encloses a square with (fortunately only) few pieces of urban furniture, thus leaving a lot of space for a variety of potential uses, creating a stage for the every-day vitality this city district is able to exude.

The centre is situated next to the church, the churchyard and the seat of the municipality of the large village of Rum. The complex of one-storey and two-storey buildings, respectful of the more rural character of the village, reflects the proportions of the surrounding buildings. The nicely renovated old seat of the village administration, a stage and grandstand with a roof, for all types of events, and the other parts of the complex together shape a graciously designed square.

Like the Glocknerhaus planned several years previously by the same architects, the community center enters into a dialog with the topographic conditions and the township of Ködnitz, which is characterized by the parish church and the late Gothic rectory. The four-story, compact structure with flat roofs and horizontal lines establishes a very serene relationship to the existing stock, without compromising it in its singularity.

Next to Perrault’s City Hall and mall, a private investor commissioned an apartment and office building on Anichstraße, the ground floor passage also serves as the southern entrance to the mall. Here, Perrault designed a tower in different shades of dark colours, with a 20 m golden metal curtain in front - an allusion, of course, to the famous Golden Roof - that stages a striking entrance to the mall, since this was not possible on Maria-Theresien-Straße, out of respect for the conservation of monuments.

AllesWirdGut constructed a church for the St. Anton Vicarage, with living accommodation for the minister and his guests, a parish office, a leisure room for local youths and, sleeping accommodation for those who would like to take a rest whilst on a pilgrimage along the "Way of St. James” to Santiago de Compostela. By making use of the slope facing towards the south and the spatial possibilities provided by a steep gable ended roof, it was possible to accommodate all functions in a compact four storey building.

With the "Haus Valgrata” a distinctive building in which various communal institutions were brought together arose at the edge of the village. Adjacent to the existing fire brigade house with a hall for cultural events, the recycling center and construction yard were accommodated in an elongated structure. Its roof forms a large entrance stairway and ends in a new plaza. Located behind it are the foyer and multipurpose hall, which were realized for the most part as superstructure extending above the state road.

The starting point for the project was the inn that was missing in the village—what followed was a new town policy, which was awarded with the "Building Culture Community Prize” in 2012. The founding of a village renewal commission preceded the construction of the new multipurpose structure. A competition was consequently tendered with Dorferneuerung Tirol (Village Renewal Tyrol). The result is a crystalline structure, conceived in reaction to the exposed slope, with the fire brigade together with a practice forecourt in the lower area and the public functions, including the large event hall, in the overlying element that protrudes eight meters outwards.

What formerly used to be just a parking lot in the back of the old City Hall now has become an exciting mix of heterogeneous functions: city administration, city council, shopping mall, a hotel and various restaurants and cafés. Intelligently graded heights, a glass roof for the mall, plus a central "Campanile” – these are the main characteristics of an unpretentious and still very outspoken ensemble that easily and fluently manages to integrate the pre-existing older buildings and to connect to the cityscape around it.

At a sensitive building plot very close to the church, cemetery and vicarage, the village centre forms, due to its independent architectural "language”, a new profane centre. The angular crystalline free-standing building, with its shape being determined by height, spacing regulations and mix of functions, contains variable and combinable open rooms at staggered levels – among others the tourist information office and a café.

As part of the 2001 Alpine Skiing World Championships, Dietrich Untertrifaller completed the wellness and leisure centre, which during the championships served as a medical centre. The majority of its volume is embedded in the slope, the flat greened roof blends in with the surrounding area. From the slope one only sees three small "barn-like” structures and the 2000m2 large hall’s skylights at a right angle to the slope.

The Goldried lift valley station situated on the outskirts of Matrei i. O. provides various service facilities, the Tauern Stadium built shortly later by Gerhard Mitterberger provides a centre. The main idea during planning was to creatively integrate the infrastructure for tourism, including the large parking spaces, into the alpine surroundings. The service building for skiing schools and ski-hire and, the cable car stations themselves, were all built of simple industrial materials and designed to fit the requirements of mass tourism.

The revitalization of the village center began in the small community of Kals am Großglockner with the Glocknerhaus, which houses the Hohe Tauern National Park administration, the Kals Tourism Association and a branch bank. A plain structure that follows the course of the road was erected; its scale and color scheme refer to the late Gothic rectory and the parish church and thereby creates a harmonious ensemble of old and new.

Kufstein Fortress, situated above the town, is one of Tyrol’s most impressive middle-age buildings. Extension work has been carried out on the fortress a number of times over the past few hundred years, among other things, the Josefsburg built by Gumpp, the Architect to the Imperial Court. In view of more intensive use for events, the castle was restored and adapted within the scope of a large cleaning up project. The historic structural fabric was secured and the necessary new infrastructure carefully altered.

On Dorfstraße between the walls of the Stams Monastery and the old rampart gate, the former "Spitz Garden” became the construction site for the Fire Brigade and Club House. Located on the ground floor, executed in exposed concrete, are the garages and ancillary rooms of the Fire Brigade. The upper floor, enveloped with a wood façade, holds the music rehearsal room and the library. By placing the building completely on the street, a square that opens towards the village center could be created for celebrations.

A nursery school, a sports center with a changing area, a sauna, a tennis hall with seating, the community forum as well as the fire brigade, building yard and trash collection point—this mix of leisure time offers and community services was realized in the mid-1990s by consolidating and expanding existing buildings in the center of town. The various usages are divided into clearly different structures and, together with the paths and surfaces, form a loose and yet locally defined network.

The Domanig Hof farmhouse, whose core originates from the 16th century and which was used for centuries as a post station, was adapted at the end of the 1980s. It houses the community office, primary school, the local fire brigade, a library, as well as an inn. The old building stock was renovated, the roof newly constructed and extended to the east, whereby the new components clearly set themselves apart from the old structures.