This white concrete extension has been added to the roof of an outdated apartment block in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, offering additional rooms and a roof terrace with panoramic views .
Nearby architect Daniel Fügenschuh was commissioned to extend the top floor apartment of a developing found in Innsbruck, a city in the western Austrian state of Tyrol, which sits within an Alpine valley.
The residential block has been passed down by means of several generations of the household to the client – a specialist flautist – who commissioned Fügenschuh to create a loft for his prime floor apartment.
A narrow band of glazing helps separate the white concrete roof extension from the white and pale yellow plasterwork that decorates the 20th-century block under, as properly as providing panoramic views of the mountainous landscape about the city.
The Loft Conversion provides an further bedroom, residing room and terrace for the client, who runs a workshop specialising in producing and restoring baroque flutes – the wooden ancestor of the modern metal woodwind instrument.
Connected story: Enjoy Architecture completes house of two halves overlooking an Austrian valley
Though it is best known now as a centre for winter sports activities in Europe, Innsbruck was when an essential hub for the production of music and instruments. It even now hosts a respected yearly Festival of Early Music – a series of concerts focused to music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
The extension has a flat roof that differentiates the developing from its neighbours in the city’s St Nikolaus district on the banks of the river Inn, which runs via the heart of the city. The block rises behind a local gasthaus – a variety of traditional inn typical in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
“Behind the Gasthaus Engl a property stands out like a tower,” explained Fügenschuh. “It is really visible from the previous town of Innsbruck on the other riverside of the Inn.”
“The aim was to strengthen the existing character of the home as a tower,” explained the architect.
Panels of white precast concrete had been mounted on a timber structure in line with the present creating to produce a homogenous connection.
“The slick facade seems contemporary, even so it still seems uniformly with the existing lime render facade,” stated the architect.
Every single of the concrete facades is supported by a pair of wooden columns, which transfer the load of the extension onto the perimeter walls of the existing home.
The extension is lined in planks of spruce wood and is connected to the reduced floor of the apartment by a timber staircase.
A narrow strip of glazing runs around the base of the extension, delivering panoramic views of the city and the Alps from the terraces and the rooms within.
More than the previous 15 years, Innsbruck has seen an influx of modern architecture, kickstarted by two competitions in the 1980s that produced a fresh debate about the combination of new and previous styles in the city.
The Town Hall, developed by French architect Dominique Perrault, was one of the very first of the new wave of buildings, and has been followed by a David Chipperfield-made buying centre amid other individuals.
Zaha Hadid designed the Bergisel Ski Leap on the edge of the city, which opened in 2003, as well as an overhaul of the cable automobiles and rail technique top up to the Nordkette mountain selection, which is common with skiers and snowboarders.
Other recent additions contain a financial institution by Austrian architect Rainer Köberl, and a public plaza with an undulating concrete surface by LAAC Architekten and Stiefel Kramer Architecture.
Photography is by David Schreyer.
Ground floor program 
Very first floor strategy 
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