Söllerhütte in Riezlern

The Söllerhütte used to serve as accommodation for sports students. It stands in the middle of a ski area. A beginners’ ski run leads right past it. The house was showing its age and resembled a youth hostel from the early 1950s.

In the course of alterations, the roof was raised and the sleeping quarters were divided into double rooms. A shared bathroom was integrated between each pair of rooms. A new entrance now leads into the ground floor from the south side. A void reaches from here up into the upper floor and connects the two levels. The kitchen and the dining room likewise underwent renovation. A bar was set up in the cellar.

For its exterior, the building received wooden cladding. The large windows were replaced by ones with subdivided frames.

Attention to detail was central to this project. Thus we developed, for example, light fixtures for what was, at that time, a new sort of lighting that was later to come into use under the title of ‘energy-saving light bulbs’. The beds are reproductions of Alfred Roth’s famous design that we found at a very good price in a Swiss department store, which is why we saw to delivery ourselves.

A few years later an extension was added for a seminar room. The funds for it were remarkably limited, meaning that the simplest standard was chosen. This extension was removed in the course of further renovations to the Söllerhütte by another architect and was replaced by a completely new wing of the building.