The Gerlos youth hostel is located in the Austrian Alps in the village of Hochkrimml at an altitude of 1700 meters. Skiing is firmly anchored in Austrian society and is part of school teaching. The aim of this project was to make affordable school trips possible. That is why the hotel was built from regional wood in solid wood construction, the hotel is heated by biomass district heating, electricity comes from photovoltaic, the journey is not made by individual transport but mainly by coach and the leftover wood from the transport of the cross-laminated timber walls was processed into furniture. The hotel has around 7500 m2 of usable square meters, around 450 beds and, for bad weather, around 2200 square meters of indoor sports areas such as a climbing wall, a gym and much more.

Architectural and landscape design

The main structure of the youth guest house is designed as a longitudinal structure in timber construction, this is positioned in the northern area of the area. The urban and spatial intention is to create a south-facing U-shaped “village square” between the main building and the street, which functions as a mediating semi-public zone between the youth hostel and the surrounding buildings. This square is accompanied by two side wings at ground level, which are spatially differentiated towards east and west as a landscape wave and allow the square to sink into the landscape as a cut in the terrain. In concrete terms, this means that these two parts of the building that accompany the village square are poured into the landscape and then planted with greenery. They merge with the environment. When you approach the youth hostel, it appears as a simple wooden structure.

Interior conception

Access to the main structure is through a single-storey area that is glazed over the entire width from the village square. The height of this area corresponds to the poured-in wings of the building that flank the village square and allows the main structure to float like a bridge over the village square. Spatial complexity arises when approaching the building. While you immerse yourself deeply in the landscape in the course of the village square, there are more and more visual relationships through the main building into the lower landscape on the other side. This takes place through numerous air spaces between the floors, which give the simple structure a visual permeability on closer inspection. The ground floor on the level of the village square contains the foyer, from which the floors are accessed with ramps. This access is positioned centrally over the entire width of the longitudinal structure and extends the space of the foyer vertically through the air hole in the middle of the ramps. The vertical of the ramp access and the numerous air spaces between the floors develop a spatial symbiosis and enable rich transverse views to a three-storey climbing wall that starts in second basement level and extends to the 1st floor, to a sports hall in the second basement level, as well as numerous other leisure activities. like trampolines and schnitzel pits. The central positioning of the main access defines the internal typology of the building in a west and east wing, each with its own escape staircase at the end of the building. At the top and bottom, the access changes from ramps to stairs in order to further differentiate the vertical access. Both wings of the building are offset from one another over two floors, thus reflecting the topography of the landscape. A passenger lift connects all floors.