House by a Mill-Stream, Taufers

Ar­chi­tects Armin and Alexan­der Pedev­illa are part of a vibrant scene that is shaping the Alto Adige coun­try­side with modern Alpine ar­chi­tec­ture. All their ar­chi­tec­tural pro­jects tap a common phi­los­o­phy to this end. Their schemes pursue clean-lined forms, cham­pion craft qual­i­ties and evolve out of given types of func­tion­al­ity and re­gional lo­ca­tion. The House by a Mill-Stream at Taufers in Alto Adige duly re­sponds to its sur­round­ings, mir­ror­ing raw cli­matic con­di­tions and sheer moun­tain slopes.

Con­versely, it is the view out onto the moun­tains that defines the inside of the house: rather than being con­ven­tion­ally arranged, windows in a variety of formats map the world outside, lending special promi­nence to visual high­lights in the moun­tain for­ma­tions. Their dif­fer­ing heights cause them to look like paint­ings or cinema screens on the wall from the inside. The rooms in the house can be said to ascend au­tonomously in half-floor chunks instead of forming clearly struc­tured storeys.

This gives rise to en­gag­ing visual axes between the various living quar­ters, an effect height­ened by a light well en­clos­ing a central set of timber stairs. Even the cabinet handles, balustrades and lamps in the House by a Mill-Stream were in­di­vid­u­ally pro­duced by hand for this project. The lambent hue and soft­ness of the forged bronze used blend in har­mo­niously with the elm, natural stone and plas­ter­ing in the house. The various hand-crafted fea­tures were ably aug­mented by handles from the FSB 1015 and 1045 series in Bronze that are wholly in keeping with the overall design ap­proach.

Photos: Gustav Willeit