A perfect couple

At the beginning there was a place – a tiny old house, at the end of the road, standing on top of a vineyard with a broad view over the green foothills of the Alps. It used to be a wine cellar, refurbished to become a holiday house of Ruth Grünberger, the homeowner, family living in the nearby Graz. She has spent her childhood there – and recalls that she has always planned to live in Steinberg. The old house stands in the middle of a protected zone, so the possibilities of an extension were limited not only by the steep site, but first of all by local regulations. It was not allowed for the extension to have a larger footprint and overwhelm the existing building.

The building not only fits into the surroundings with a well–proportioned volume. Also, the chosen materials mirror the local tradition. Only the cantilevered part is cast in concrete, the building above it is executed in timber–frame construction, clad with black painted boards. A red-tiled roof follows the local regulations, though it stays modern thanks to precise detailing: the gutter is hidden within the construction, allowing a sharp roof edge. The VELUX roof windows are positioned in a row, resulting from the grid of the roof construction.