architek[tour] tirol – guide to architecture in tyrol

On the Stubai Valley Wild Water Trail, the Grawa Observatory offers a barrier-free viewing platform overlooking the widest waterfall in the Eastern Alps. The organic shape of the platform, which also serves as a bridge along the trail, is inspired by sediment deposits from glacial moraines. A gently sloped area with wooden deck chairs invites visitors to take a minute to pause and "bathe” in the fine water mist.

Located at over 2,000 m in the Stubai Alps, the Neue Regensburger Hütte was built in 1930 and is now a listed building. Rainer Köberl added a large, prefabricated wooden structure to the repeatedly expanded building, which stands as a narrow, tall structure next to the white plastered hut and provides a calm, contemporary counterpoint. From the loggias, you can look out onto the picturesque "Hohe Moos,” a unique plain covered with cotton grass, through which a stream flows.

On the Neustift school campus, several schools, previously scattered across various parts of town, were brought together for a total of around 500 pupils. fasch&fuchs.architekten naturally integrate the extensive spatial allocation plan into the landscape. They designed a carpet-like school campus that develops like a cascade between two head buildings and offers a differentiated range of spaces with streets, squares, ramps, courtyards and gardens.

The envelope of the Moser House by Madritsch / Pfurtscheller was originally an old barn that was translocated and transformed in the sense of "re-use” philosophy into a residence for a family of five. A half-timbered structure offering two levels of living space was set into the barn, which remains unchanged for the most part on the exterior. The result is a paramount example of how a building type that is no longer functionally needed can be filled with new life.

Tourism pioneer Heinrich Klier had a chapel dedicated to the memory of his companions built directly on the ridge of the Schaufeljoch Mountain. Very plain in its form and materiality, the structure is reduced to the basic elements of a classic chapel and offers a place of calm and contemplation, which is open to everyone, in the midst of a lively ski circuit.

Situated at an altitude of 3200 metres right in the middle of the Stubaier Glacier, the summit platform "TOP OF TYROL” offers a very impressive view across the Tyrolean Mountains. Based on the existing topography, LAAC architects designed a "symbol in the snow”, which nestles into the flowing movements of the Great Isidor’s rocky ridge and juts out nine metres above the ridge edge.

The glacier terminal extension provides the existing Stubaier glacier cable lift valley station with a new reception area. The extension connects the existing heterogeneous buildings and, for the first time presents the single and double cable lifts as a single unit. A form-giving element is the curved and greened roof, beneath this is the transparent cladding of the lifts reception area.

The "Jochdohle” is Austria’s highest altitude mountain restaurant (3150 metres). Sitting on a small rock ledge and secured to the rock face is a three storey steel tower, which serves as a structural and functional "backbone”. Steel girders are fixed to the tower in a radial manner. During the summer the round silver shimmering building hovers above the glacier; in winter it sinks into the fresh snow.