An iPad controls the perforated shutters that concertina across the glass facade of this property in Linz, Austria, permitting its two software engineer residents to reveal or conceal views of the city .
Architects Andreas Dworschak and Wolfgang Mühlbachler of neighborhood studio Archinauten made Property GT for the couple and their youthful kids on a sloping plot overlooking Linz – the third-biggest city in Austria and the house of the annual Ars Electronica Festival for digital art and technology.
A entirely glazed facade was extra to permit residents to appreciate the views. But this also developed a privacy problem, so the architects devised a series of perforated shutters that can be controlled electronically via an iPad.
Arranged in two rows, these hinged shutters concertina across the massive expanses of glazing on the two upper storeys to screen the family’s living spaces.
“The complete south facade is covered by an intelligent and electrically driven shading system, which performs as a filtering layer that regulates the sum of sunlight and openness,” explained the architects.
Related story: House by Philip Stejskal can be “locked down” with shutters that mix into the facade
“The shading technique of perforated steel folding aspects, reacts to the needs of the user and hugely influences the visual appeal of the facade.”
Little circular perforations in the steel shutters are intended to reference the dappled patterns of light and shade cast by the foliage of trees. When the shutters are closed the tiny perforations artificially recreate this effect on the interior.
“The pattern loosely refers to the shadow that trees and leaves would cause on a facade surface,” Archinauten’s Valerie Kerz informed Dezeen.
“Together with the remaining trees and bushes we tried to double the result of the shadows – we like the impact that some shadows move with the wind and other people do not.”
The pattern is carried on to the black MDF panels that line the interior walls, as well as an elevator shaft that connects all four floors of the building.
A single wall of the lift is covered in artificial grass, which the architects explained helps to compensate for it being the only area in the residence with out a see.
The house’s two lower floors are partially submerged. The terrazzo-covered lobby, which is concealed beneath a sloping lawn at the front of the home, contains a closet location, bathroom and parking spaces for site visitors.
The two software program engineers operate from home, so an workplace is situated on the initial floor, along with utility spaces. This storey is somewhat recessed from the rest of the facade and partly masked by the angle of the lawn.
A line of substantial-degree windows supplies a supply of daylight for the partially submerged floor.
3 bedrooms sit behind the glass facade on the second floor. A narrow staircase prospects from right here to an elevated backyard on the hillside.
The living area and kitchen are contained with a glass penthouse on the upper floor, which also back links with the garden to the rear.
“Like a pavilion the living area lays on leading of the developing – transparency dominates the space – specifically in direction of the reduce-out garden,” Kerz informed Dezeen.
Floors all through the property are either speckled terrazzo or oak floorboards.
The architects also designed a sauna and a pool home for the garden of the house, which could be realised in a second phase of the undertaking.
Photography is by Kurt Hörbst.
Degree floor plan 
Level 1 floor prepare 
Level two floor prepare 
Level three floor plan 
Part Dezeen
