Subscribe
Construction is risky. For example, last month a tree fell on top of Parkview Mountain House. The tree was located upgradient from the house and, it was so big, that pieces of it actually landed across the street on our neighbor's property.
Thankfully, it didn't cause as much damage as it could have. It punctured the roof in a few places, but magically, the bay window that it landed on was perfectly fine. We also opened up the drywall around the window to inspect all of the structure.
Needless to say, we didn't have a line item in our budget for "trees that might fall on the house during construction." We also didn't have a line item to take down more trees behind the house, which is exactly what we decided to do after this happened. We called an arborist and asked them to fall anything that looked even remotely questionable. That ended up being 4 more trees.
We were not expecting this.
But this is why budgets have something called a construction contingency (although, we still have enough savings from some of our other contracts not to have to use it). In the end, we also learned something. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, the answer is -- yes -- it can still cost you a lot of money.
I definitely wouldn't call a 40-foot wide lot minuscule. But I guess when it's located on the side of a mountain in Zell am See, Austria; you have a required 13-foot setback on both sides; and your architect is one of the world's leading practitioners, it starts to feel a bit smaller. This is the recently completed Austrian House, designed by Rem Koolhaas:
Construction is risky. For example, last month a tree fell on top of Parkview Mountain House. The tree was located upgradient from the house and, it was so big, that pieces of it actually landed across the street on our neighbor's property.
Thankfully, it didn't cause as much damage as it could have. It punctured the roof in a few places, but magically, the bay window that it landed on was perfectly fine. We also opened up the drywall around the window to inspect all of the structure.
Needless to say, we didn't have a line item in our budget for "trees that might fall on the house during construction." We also didn't have a line item to take down more trees behind the house, which is exactly what we decided to do after this happened. We called an arborist and asked them to fall anything that looked even remotely questionable. That ended up being 4 more trees.
We were not expecting this.
But this is why budgets have something called a construction contingency (although, we still have enough savings from some of our other contracts not to have to use it). In the end, we also learned something. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, the answer is -- yes -- it can still cost you a lot of money.
I definitely wouldn't call a 40-foot wide lot minuscule. But I guess when it's located on the side of a mountain in Zell am See, Austria; you have a required 13-foot setback on both sides; and your architect is one of the world's leading practitioners, it starts to feel a bit smaller. This is the recently completed Austrian House, designed by Rem Koolhaas:
This is the chalet that our group has been staying in for the last week:
We've been calling it a tree house. It is 5 levels in total. And you circulate through the house using a spiral staircase in the center of it. It's space efficient, but there are a lot of stairs.
The site is downhill from the road, which, as we have talked about before, creates a more challenging build than uphill from the road.
You enter the chalet on the third level, which itself houses 2 bedrooms. One floor below and one floor above also have 2 bedrooms, meaning there are 6 bedrooms in total. On the lowest floor is an indoor hot tub, a shared parking garage, and a shared ski/snowboard room.
Every mountain house needs, at a minimum, two things: a fireplace and a hot tub. Ideally the latter is outside.
As is typical in the mountains, the main living space is on the top floor (level 5 in this case). You want this for the views. If you're building into a sloping site, the lowest floors are usually somewhat constrained.
We did the same thing with Parkview Mountain House. But it does mean that you circulate through the more "private" spaces within the house before reaching the more "public" ones. This is the opposite of what happens in most homes.
The underground parking garage is accessed by way of a small parking elevator that lowers you down two floors. Initially this seemed excessive, but it is a shared elevator/garage. The chalet is semi-detached chalet, if you will, and so this was probably the only way they could get enough parking on the site. Assuming our attached neighbor is of a similar size, that's 12 bedrooms.
It also creates an important pathway so that people don't need to bring their skis and snowboards through the house.
Every site has its challenges and that is especially the case in the mountains.
I'm always drawn to houses like these because they demand creativity. You can't just repeat what was done on that other 40-foot wide lot, because then you might conclude that the lot is unbuildable. And it's not. You just have to solve the puzzle. Then you've unlocked something that that many, or perhaps most, thought wasn't possible. And that's truly exciting to me.
For more on the Austrian House, check out Architectural Digest.
Photography by Pernille Loof and Thomas Loof
This is the chalet that our group has been staying in for the last week:
We've been calling it a tree house. It is 5 levels in total. And you circulate through the house using a spiral staircase in the center of it. It's space efficient, but there are a lot of stairs.
The site is downhill from the road, which, as we have talked about before, creates a more challenging build than uphill from the road.
You enter the chalet on the third level, which itself houses 2 bedrooms. One floor below and one floor above also have 2 bedrooms, meaning there are 6 bedrooms in total. On the lowest floor is an indoor hot tub, a shared parking garage, and a shared ski/snowboard room.
Every mountain house needs, at a minimum, two things: a fireplace and a hot tub. Ideally the latter is outside.
As is typical in the mountains, the main living space is on the top floor (level 5 in this case). You want this for the views. If you're building into a sloping site, the lowest floors are usually somewhat constrained.
We did the same thing with Parkview Mountain House. But it does mean that you circulate through the more "private" spaces within the house before reaching the more "public" ones. This is the opposite of what happens in most homes.
The underground parking garage is accessed by way of a small parking elevator that lowers you down two floors. Initially this seemed excessive, but it is a shared elevator/garage. The chalet is semi-detached chalet, if you will, and so this was probably the only way they could get enough parking on the site. Assuming our attached neighbor is of a similar size, that's 12 bedrooms.
It also creates an important pathway so that people don't need to bring their skis and snowboards through the house.
Every site has its challenges and that is especially the case in the mountains.
I'm always drawn to houses like these because they demand creativity. You can't just repeat what was done on that other 40-foot wide lot, because then you might conclude that the lot is unbuildable. And it's not. You just have to solve the puzzle. Then you've unlocked something that that many, or perhaps most, thought wasn't possible. And that's truly exciting to me.
For more on the Austrian House, check out Architectural Digest.
Photography by Pernille Loof and Thomas Loof
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
