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.