LANDSCAPE AS HOUSE
‘Landscape as House’ is about animating the landscape of my family in Austria by means of a new form of topographic living: a fragmented house integrated into the forests, meadows and the village. As a result of the movement through the landscape, the size of a subsistent farmer’s land, this house creates a new form of living with rooms that inhabit the topography. Routines and rituals are rooted in the changing weather. Walking becomes a domestic activity.
The aim of this narrative project is to renew my own connection with the rural landscape of my family and create a personal space that leads to a new form of topographic living in the Bregenzerwald region. Topographic living means a life of constant interaction: an interplay between myself and my environment, between what is considered to be inside and outside, between building and landscape, and between that which is mine and that of others. This way of living leads to a new formation and gradual transformation of the cultural landscape of the Bregenzerwald.
‘Topographic furnitures’ create new relationships between domestic activities and the landscape that they inhabit. Through these interventions a new meaning is given to seemingly ordinary landscape elements.
The fragmented character of space is essential to ‘landscape as house’, which leads to a daily rhythm of movement from room to room. This movement is created through the integration of a personal routine into the landscape and leads to more awareness of surroundings, time and space – a ritualisation of living. Seasons are a domestic experience, maintenance activities become ritual.
Therefore this house is continuously recreated by walking through it, forming new relationships between the landscape the rooms and myself.
This project is my personal exploration of what it means to live in landscape. To experience it, learn from it, animate it and take care of it. Every day.
'Landscape as House' is Anna's graduation project at the Academy of Architecture 2018 (mentor Marieke Timmermanns)
this walk leads through my family's landscape.
the meadows, forests, water streams, barns and buildings that are the rinderer heritage.
the emotional space that i call 'heimat'.
this walk is my personal exploration of what it means to live in landscape. to experience it, animate it, learn from it. every day.
i walk my landscape as house. walking from room to room. through one day and across seasons.
walking this house is seizing landscape.
through walking this house is continuously recreated. building up new relationships between the house, the landscape and myself.
landscape as house is embedding my domestic routine into the landscape of my family.
daily rhythms of departure, initiation and return.
getting up, washing myself, drinking tea, working, cooking, eating, bathing, being together. routines and rituals as acts of inhabiting landscape. my domestic actions gradually transform the landscape around me. like a meadow wetted by an overflowing bath. a constant stream of water reviving old topography.
walking through my fragmented house, i become fully aware of time and space. covering distance enriches my sense of place.
for me living in a landscape like living in a house, is living with the natural.
in landscape as house seasons become a domestic experience.
domestic functions give elements of landscape a new meaning. like a forest becoming a curtain. a space of transition. between awake and asleep, consciousness and dream, enclosed and open, darkness and light.
a water stream becoming a place to wash yourself.
my movement over the meadow is guided by the skin and body of the mountain. rough and dry, or wet and slippery. walking upwards, breathing heavily. then - being there.
up there the view, the house and i, become one as landscape.
maintenance of the cultural landscape becomes a domestic act. domestic choices create new natures.
landscape as house is about animating my family's landscape through a new way of topographic living.
walking through my landscape as house
Short documentary by Elf Godefroy about Anna's family reflecting on sharing their heritage landscape
