PATSCHERKOFEL CABLE CAR
Innsbruck, Austria
Invited competition
Concept
in collaboration with Diego Perez
The buildings emerge from the amazing landscape that surrounds them. They blend with topography lines, emphasizing both their continuities and ruptures. They are sometimes smooth, at other times they are rough, breaking into several parts. This condition takes place across the different spaces of the stations, from interior space to facade, where strips in different materials surround the mass of the building.
This proposal is a flexible system that adjusts to the different conditions of each station: its faraway views, immediate surroundings, topography, position along the cable car line and programmatic requirements. This system works in several realms, from technical (construction) definition, to a common design strategy, while technical and staff areas are spatially modest, the cable car zone is emphasized with a high sloping roof, and public areas are articulated by a very particular spatial definition.
The Talstation takes a long stretch of land transitioning between valley and mountain. The building itself becomes an interior landscape, housing a diversity of activities in an open plan area, whose proportions are defined by strips that emerge from the topography. Free standing volumes and furniture loosely populate this space, allowing users to spontaneously roam around restaurant, shop, ski school, terraces, and ultimately take a ramp that emerges from the ground to climb up the roof and appreciate the amazing view of the Hafelekarspitze.
The Mittelstation emerges from the landscape, blending the mountain profile from the top with a sloping roof that comes forth towards the view. It clearly distinguishes between public and technical areas, which are partly placed underground to avoid interfering with outdoor activities.
As the highest station and the place where the cable car line ends, the Bergstation takes on a more radical approach in its relation to the surroundings, it becomes a landmark visible from far away, that emanates from the landscape and stands out from it.