The Alpine Cabin by Susan and David Scott is lifted off the ground on six columns made of douglas fir tree trunks, which pierce through the rooms on both storeys.

The exterior clad in cedar, intended to weather to the tone of the surrounding forest, and the interior finished in planed fir.

"The construction approach was determined to avoid machine excavation, to withstand the annual snowfall, to resist the dominant winds and to build in a manner which elevates the building above the height of the accumulated snow on the ground," say the architects.

The majority of the ground floor is taken up by a combined living room and kitchen, but also includes a bathroom and sauna. Upstairs there are two bedrooms with a study in between.

One corner of the ground floor is cut away to create a spacious porch where firewood and snowboarding equipment can be stored.

The cabin is located in a community-operated alpine recreation area 1300 metres above sea level and is accessible by a gravel road for five months of the year, but otherwise equipment and supplies must be carried on a sledge to the site.

The building is completely off-grid, heated by a wood-burning stove and using water that must be fetched from nearby and carried in.

The architects built the project themselves with the help of friends. "The cabin was constructed out of a desire to directly design and build as a singular act, to work with the freedom one experiences when snowboarding, and in a manner which is centered in the adventure and not bound heavily in pre-determination," they explain.

Susan and David Scott launched their own practice in February after twelve years of working for established firms.

Other winter retreats on Dezeen include a holiday home that Peter Zumthor designed for himself and his family and one that's been squeezed into the passageway between two farm buildings in northern Italy.

See more winter retreats »
See more architecture in the snow »

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Zumthor, the most recent recipient of the Royal Gold Medal for architecture, built two neighbouring timber houses in 2009 for himself and his wife and named them the Oberhus and the Unterhus. "Annalisa had always dreamed of living in a house built of wood," wrote the architect in the year of construction.

Both three-storey houses feature a similar vernacular design, with gabled roofs and large balcony windows, but it is the Unterhus that Peter and Annalisa Zumthor have made available to rent. Peter Zumthor has also designed a third house, named the Türmlihus, which is due to complete this year and will start accepting bookings in the autumn. "We are very much looking forward to having guests in our timber vacation homes in Leis," say the pair.

The Unterhus contains five rooms and sleeps 4-5, while the Türmlihus will contain four rooms and will accommodate a maximum of four people. The Türmlihus will also feature a sauna and a cross-shaped layout that offers views in four different directions.

Zumthor is best known for designing buildings such as the Therme Vals thermal baths in Switzerland and the Kunsthaus Bregenz gallery in Austria, but his more recent projects include a memorial to commemorate witches burned at the stake. See more stories about Peter Zumthor, including an interview we filmed with him at the opening of the 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.

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Positioned beside the Dolomites, the three-storey Dolomitenblick building contains six holiday homes that each face north-east towards the mountains.

A diagonal recess slices down the centre of the facade, separating the balconies of different apartments and breaking down the volume of the building.

"This incision becomes the main defining element of the building," explains Plasma Studio. "From the cut at either side a strip unfolds that forms the balustrade of a generous covered balcony and ends into the surrounding topography."

The whole facade also slopes backwards to match the incline of the sloping land, finishing with an asymmetric interpretation of a traditional gabled roof, which the architects were asked to incorporate by the local planning authorities.

"Slightly deformed, it merges with our design intention but also with the traditional typology of pitched roofs," say the architects, explaining how they wanted to explore the "new potentials of a traditional typology".

Inspired by local farmhouses, the architects used larch to clad the walls behind the pre-oxidised copper balconies, as well as the floors and walls inside each apartment.

They also made various depressions into the ground, adding low-level windows and a tunnel leading into an underground parking area beneath the building.

Above: balconies design concept

Plasma Studio have completed a few buildings in northern Italy, including a hotel with stripy timber cladding and a housing block in South Tyrol. See all our stories about Plasma Studio »

Above: vertical incision design concept

Photography is by Hertha Hurnaus.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Dolomitenblick

The building is located on a hillside in the Dolomites, at the end of a residential area.

Above: location plan

The volume has been developed mainly from its pragmatic functional request to host 6 independent apartments with one common circulation: through a cut that marks the main access and the division of the units the volume is splitted into 2 halves. Besides its functional meaning this incision becomes the main defining element of the building: from the cut at either side a strip unfolds that forms the balustrade of a generous covered balcony and ends into the surrounding topography. Following the steep natural hillside with each floor the strips and the façade jump back.

Above: site plan

Programme

The building hosts 6 generous holiday homes, all directed to the sun and the panoramic view of the Dolomites. Each private unite is designed to get a maximum of privacy: through the division of the whole building volume into 2 parts, through the stepped balustrades which avoid insight from the above unit and from the passing by street. Each apartment gets an extension of the internal living area by a covered sun and view facing terrace which at each floor ends in a small private garden. Local larch wood defines internal and external living areas. Floor to ceiling glazing allows the maximum view and energetic gain as directed to south, external sun blinds and the overhangs of the above balconies minimize overheating during summertime.

Above: apartments level one plan

The main circulation is very compact and a continuation of the volume defining gap and repeats the use of the local larch wood and the color code of the façade.

Above: parking level plan

Material

Sitting at the edges of a residential area with a very eclectic and non-coherent appearance we focus to contrast these surroundings by simply generating a volume which grows out of its natural surrounding topography and blends again into it, by minimizing the used materials to a very local, almost vernacular code: larch wood and pre oxidised copper. Both the copper and the larch wood are exposed to a natural change of colour by the atmospheric influence of sun, rain and snow. Through the repetition of the colours of old, close-by farmhouses with dark, sunburned larchwood facades this building volumes blends into its natural surroundings.

Above: front elevation

Focus was given to the design of the copper balustrades which start from the natural topography, grow, become balustrades, attach to the building where the gap defines the volume, peel again off and end finally in the surrounding topography. When peeling off, the metal sheets which are divided into horizontal strips describe a curved hyperbolic-parabolic geometry: crafts knowledge is brought to its extreme.

Above: side elevation

The dark copper surrounds the volume from all sides, the strips form a second layer which gives shelter from and insight and finally define the roof as a continuation of the overall façade and volume. The form of the roof itself derives from local planning regulation which allows only a pitched roof in this specific building plot: slightly deformed, it merges with our design intention but also with the traditional typology of pitched roofs by not simply repeating but rather exploring what new potentials of a traditional typology can be.

Above: rear elevation

Project: residential building with 6 units and underground garage
Client: private
Size: 1.050 sq m
Location: Sexten / Sesto Italy
Completed: Summer 2012

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Dezeen archive: our latest roundup of stories from the Dezeen archive is full of cosy cabins, chalets, lodges and shelters - perfect places to seek refuge from the wintery weather. See all the stories »

See all our archive stories »

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To recreate the rhythms and patterns of the traditional local buildings, JKA and FUGA used one-inch-thick roughly sawn spruce planks, which they had to source over a year in advance. "Only a few trunks presented enough nodes and few clapboards big enough were able to be pulled from each trunk," architect Jérémie Koempgen told Dezeen.

In typical Alpine barns the gaps between disjointed wooden planks would allow air to circulate round drying hay, but at Villa Solaire the gaps between each panel simply let extra light into the rooms inside.

The architects studied the shadows cast onto the villa by neighbouring buildings to determine the positions of the cut-out patterns. "The pattern within the cladding is designed to respond to the path described by these shadows. The areas receiving a greater amount of sun are all the more open," Koempgen said.

Originally they planned to cut the wood digitally before installation, but instead found it easier and more economical to attach the boards to the building frame first, then stencil on the patterns and employ a local carpenter to cut them by hand. "The construction marks slowly disappear but the cladding keeps the valor and traces of the handmade work," Koempgen explained.

The framework of the original farmhouse was restored, which the architects describe as an unusual practice. "A lot of operations on old farmhouses used to cut out the wood structure of the first level and replace it with concrete structures. In our case, the existing skeleton was integrally conserved," added Koempgen.

Inside the two-story house, a ground floor wading pool is surrounded with recycled slate tiles that were originally used to cover the roof.

Bedroom suites and a kitchen are located on the first floor and are positioned at each of the corners, leaving a cross-shaped living room between with windows on all four walls.

The different areas of this room are separated by level changes, which the architects describe as a reference to the topography of the of the Rhône-Alpes region.

"The house is conceived as an imprint of its surroundings," concluded Koempgen. "Imprint in terms of landscape and geography, in terms of sunlight, as well as in terms of history."

See more stories about villas on Dezeen »

See more stories about French architecture »

Photography is by Julien Lanoo

Here’s a few words from the architects

Villa Solaire
JKA and FUGA

The project consists in a conversion of an ancient farmhouse into a luxury rental villa, revisiting traditional techniques. This former farmhouse is located in the historic district of Pied de La Plagne, in Morzine. Built in 1826, it was singled out by the municipality as a landmark for traditional architecture.

Drawing on the context: inside/outside fitting

A uniform cladding wraps the whole farm. One of the challenges of the project was to preserve its appearance, while filtering light into the heart of the building.

The traditional technique of decorative cut-outs within the wood strips was used to perform specific perforations within the planks. The design of this simple and contemporary pattern is consistent with the equipment and techniques used by the local carpenter for cutting spruce slats. These cut-outs recall the disjointed battens of the traditional barn, used for drying hay.

Today, these slits bring light inside the building. The glazed elements of the project, which are flush with the inside of the façade, are partially hidden by the cover strips. As they are not visible from outside they do not interfere with the uniformity of the cladding.

Throughout the year, the surrounding roofs and buildings cast their shadows on the façades. The pattern within the cladding is designed to respond to the path described by these shadows: the areas receiving a greater amount of sun are all the more open and provide a certain legibility of the continuity between the common spaces of the house.

This concept of interlocking inside/outside, evokes a lifestyle in harmony with its surroundings and leads to the project being named the "solar house": a house exposed on its four façades to the path of the sun, perceived as a sundial.

Above: site plan - click above to see a larger image

Finding one’s bearings: a living geography.

The idea is to move through this house between four "blocks" steady as rocks, located at each corner of the building. Each independent unit forms a suite with sleeping area and amenities. Between these four blocks, the remaining space is occupied by a succession of stacked floors at different levels in the framework. This continuum of generous space welcomes the activities shared by the inhabitants: cooking, dining, watching a film, conversing in the living room, warming up around the fire…

Above: ground floor plan - click above to see a larger image

These four blocks mark the house as the summits punctuate the valley. In Haute Savoie, one instinctively relates the farms to the mountains. Again, this symbolic association is translated in each block as it is identified in its facing mountainous terrain, just as the framework can be interpreted as a forest, whose various topographical lines are recalled within the different floor levels.

Above: first floor plan - click above to see a larger image

Revealing the structure: nested scales or "the complex of the snail".

The charm of the original farm resides in the existing structure. Conserving its overall appearance was of one of the project's key challenges, which motivated its restoration: It was fully recovered and the original plastering preserved after brushing and trimming.

Above: section - click above to see a larger image

Compressed spaces, expanded spaces. Nesting areas.

In order to clear the room of the nave while meeting the rental house needs, utility functions were closely integrated. A strong contrast results from the scales of the cosy bedrooms, bathrooms and sleeping alcoves, next to the open central meeting space. The complexity of these nested spaces is combined with a similar research in terms of details and materials.

Above: section - click above to see a larger image

Client: Private
Cost: 1.100.000 € excl. tax
Area: 620 m² gross floor area
Beginning of studies: October 2009
Construction completion: January 2012
Program: Rental house – capacity 16 persons
Design Team: JKA – Jérémie Koempgen Architecture, FUGA – J.Aich & M.Recordon designers, J.Koempgen and J.Aich are members of the collective Ferpect
Contractors: SARL Laperrousaz (carpenter) / SARL Yves Gourvest Construction (masonry) / SARL Fourcade Herve (interior design) / Etablissements Guy Perracino (joinery) / Labevière (Electrician) / Marcellin (heating) / SARL CQFD Drouet (shutters) / Florinda Donga (curtains)

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