Barn red? Burnt umber? Redwood? Indian red? Smoked salmon? Windsor tan? Chestnut? Marron? It’s technically RAL 3016, and when applied on wooden boards it turns this family chalet in Zell am See into a kinky incarnation of Alpine timber-cladding, a cheeky expression of folk.  

But from the old hotel to which the chalet attaches like an appendix, the architecture draws no more. Other than the wooded exterior, the new annex is a compositional non sequitur – see the modified Diocletian window in the back that points to foreign styles. It is a surprise in a country where merely submitting a flat roof means looking for trouble.

Its double height speaks of the vertical dimension, which is usually abandoned in local architecture in favour of the much esteemed horizontal. From the inside, all wants for views of mountains are supplied profusely by outsize glass sheets on three of its sides, just short from being full curtain walls. On their wooden frames RAL 3016 has been applied with different levels of saturation to lend variety - an exercise in subtlety in spite the audacity of their redness. 

The ground floor houses the family’s living room and dining room, where massive polished concrete walls act as a counterpoint to the much diaphanous façade. Roller shades can be drawn over the entire height of the glass panes should further privacy be required, resulting in a distinctly different appearance from the outside.

Above, a curve in the mezzanine permits a small home-office, and converses with the half-moon of the inverted Diocletian window. There’s another half-circle in the section of the staircase’s pillar, white and thin. Bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen remain on the body of the hotel, now rendered the primary host, and which this very family runs. 

Steiner Architecture ff, Vienna, 2023