Three Velux Group GGL roof windows have been positioned to look like three distinct paintings of the Alps glacier. Each one frames a distinct story of the surroundings. The mountain hut blends into the rocky landscape. It even changes its color in the same way - golden in the morning, becoming light grey in the midday sun, and shining at sunset, only to fade into a deep blue and black after dusk.
History and Location
The Dachstein glacier, a 2700m high mountain in the Austrian region of Styria, has one of the most spectacular views over the Alps. 250m below the summit, a tiny hut was placed as a shelter for the climbers. The Seethalerhütte hut was named for its former host. Military barracks were used for the shed, positioned on a plateau that turned out to be unsuitable in times of climate change.
A competition for its replacement was held in 2016. Dreiplus Architekten ZT GmbH won it with a concept of a building seamlessly blended into the surrounding rock. The architects, Stephan Hoinkes and Thomas Heil created the concept to mirror the character of the old mountain shelter.
Site and Construction
In the summer of 2017 the construction started with casting the underground concrete floors. A wooden structure was created on top of the concrete foundation in the spring of 2018. The original hut, located just below the new site was in use up until the opening of the new one in Christmas 2018.
Maximum functionality and interior comfort are extremely important in the special alpine conditions so every detail had to be thoroughly considered. Special attention was given to regular guests, a couple of innkeepers' and a young man from Tibet who come to help every year.
This led to a completely new form of use of a regular product: the reach-through bar counter towards the restaurant terrace became also a larger Velux roof window, providing when open both a roof over the counter and allowing the service outside directly from indoors.
Framing the View
The kitchen and large dining area on the ground floor are complemented with three large windows that were built to match the Velux products installed next to them. They frame the view, appearing like three distinct paintings - the first of a stone wall, the second of the plateau in the north, and the third of the neighboring peak. This way of understanding the windows as paintings led to a very conscious and thought-through placement of the openings in the design.
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| The bedrooms on the first and second floor, with bunk beds, are also equipped with one painting-like Velux window each. |
Project Data
| Product | GGL and GPL |
| Year of Completion | 2018 |
| Architect | Stephan Hoinkes and Thomas Heil, Dreiplus Architekten ZT GmbH |
