A young entrepreneur purchased a stretch of land on the slopes of Poestling Berg, a mountain overlooking Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. In 2007, he commissioned our studio to design a 650sqm family residence comprising living and sleeping quarters as well as a garage area. The design was dedicated to integrating Villa A into the terrain, thus blurring its boundaries with the surrounding beauty of nature.

By following the natural topography, the villa exists partially underground, which is where the garage, building services, fitness area, and guest rooms are located. The living areas are distributed on the lower levels, which allows direct access to the surrounding garden, while the bedrooms occupy the uppermost floor. The sleeping areas are embedded into a roof structure carried by steel columns. The columns, which are completely detached from the massive stone walls below, allow the steel structure to hover over the living areas.

In doing this, the architect’s intension was to formally and structurally differentiate the upper floor from the lower levels below. While the upper floor is kept private through this shift in design language, the lower levels are mostly designated for living, lounging and dining. These activities are embedded at different levels into the topography of the land and have direct access to the surrounding landscape. This connection to the earth led the architects to opt for massive concrete structure clad in stone. The bedrooms above are embedded into the roof structure carried by steel columns that seemingly hover over the massive walls below.