In 2009, the alpine mountain massif of the Dolomites becomes "Unesco World Natural Heritage Site". After various considerations regarding a visitor centre, the local Tourist Association and the municipality of Sesto launched a planning competition for the „Haus der Berge“ (House of mountains) in 2016. The site chosen was the area around the congress centre, fairground and music pavilon, on the edge of the village.
From the text of the competition brief: "The core competence of Sesto and its historical pioneering role as a mountain village in Alta Pusteria must be clearly emphasised by the project. The design must make Sesto's core competence as an Alpine centre visible. The open-air area should be reorganised and the various structures clearly linked, incorporating the surrounding nature (Dolomites, Sesto sundial). The aim is to create an attractive visitor centre that incorporates the existing structures, makes them visible and integrates new structures.“
Our proposal for the competition was decidedly not to create touristic event architecture, The five-storey tower-like building intends to raise awareness for the already existing: The distinctive landscape, its ecosystem and inhabitants.
Immediately local available wood (larch and spruce, 220m³), from the community's own forests, forms the untreated plastic, glue and metal-free solid-timber structure of the building. By vertically stacking the uses, the five-storey tower-like structure (around 1700m³) intends to minimize the consumption of ground and point out into the landscape. From the ground floor upwards the building is entirely constructed in glue-free, vertical, solid-wood-block construction.
The untreated timber blocks of the walls and ceilings are assembled with wooden joints, enabling the structure and its materials to be completely dismantled and reused at any point in the future. This ensures a maximum storage time for the approximately 178 tonnes of CO² (approx. 70 logs main structure, without interior constructions), stored in the buildings material. The spatial program required in the competition included offices, an arrival and information room and relatively freely configurable areas for exhibition spaces and entertainment. The centre-piece of the project, a small, two-storey multi-purpose venue, was added to the competition's spatial program.
Its versatile usage intends to provide the greatest possible intersection between touristic and everyday, local use. The pathway through the building winds up around its introverted uses, opening up on the top floor towards the villages landmark, the „Sesto sundial“ mountains. A vast terrace space „cut out“ of the solid form aims to create a space of intimate encounter between the observer and the surrounding ecosystem beyond the turbulence of the valleys touristic infrastructure. Text description by the architects.
