Leogang
Year
2024
HIRT kinetics
- HIRT kinetics SF 90
Project Partner
- Kollegger Metallbau GmbH
Photographer
- Gian Ragettli
Where Mountain Air Fills the Room.
Where once there was merely a simple mountain hut, a place emerged that combines alpine tradition with a modern lifestyle. With great sensitivity, Hütten Gaudi in Leogang now has the ability to continuously morph itself depending on the time of day and weather. At lunchtime it may present itself as an open terrace with a view or as a cozy retreat, in the evening as a stage for legendary après-ski moments or for al fresco dining in mild summer nights. The HIRT kinetics retractable façades transform the venue at the touch of a button.
Shifting Shapes at the Touch of a Button
The morphing façade connects the hospitality area to the surrounding nature and makes clear mountain air and panoramic views part of the experience. At other times, they provide protection and safety when the weather turns rough. HIRT kinetics makes this possible by keeping the technology invisible, creating a space where joy, fun, and nature become one. Thus, Hütten Gaudi demonstrates what HIRT kinetics can achieve: architecture that is not static but alive, that changes with the moods of people and nature and manages to express a place’s magic anew in every situation.
Architecture that Transforms Spaces: a Backdrop for Enjoyment and Joie De Vivre
Mountain holidays mean freedom, fun, and a break from everyday life. Those who arrive in Leogang will find not only glittering snow and mountain panoramas, but also places that invite them to linger, celebrate, and relax. Hütten Gaudi is just such a place.
Directly situated at start of the Asitzbahn, an aging mountain hut was not simply renovated, but instead completely reinterpreted with great undestanding for tradition and modernity. The result is a place that combines coziness with elegance and coolness. In the afternoons, the restaurant invites guests for a stopover with hearty Austrian snacks, in the evenings it’s time to party the legendary après-ski. Here, coziness and joie de vivre meet modern architecture, forming a perfect symbiosis.
Where once an open roof, sunshades, and radiant heaters offered guests rustic protection, today a spacious meeting point for winter sports enthusiasts, holidaymakers, and party guests has emerged. The alpine charm has remained – but now in a contemporary guise. The new restaurant radiates warmth and style. It offers protection from sun, wind, and winter weather and transforms in an instant into a stage for carefree hours. The large glass windows create a sense of safety – warm, cozy, and protected – while simultaneously opening up views of the impressive landscape. Due to a special pneumatic gasket, they are exceptionally soundproof, retaining the exuberant party atmosphere strictly inside and allowing the mountain panorama to remain in serene silence.
Sunshine and mild air? As soon as the HIRT kinetics retractable façades silently disappear into the floor, the pub opens up to its full extent. Suddenly, the boundary between inside and outside is lifted: The clear mountain air flows in, the panorama draws closer, and the moment gains a lightness that can be felt.
The soundproof and thermally insulated HIRT kinetics retractable façades offer protection from the harsh mountain weather.
The façades can be raised and lowered at the touch of a button. In sunshine, they open the space to nature and the magic of the mountains. In bad weather, they keep out moisture and cold.
Limitless Experience: HIRT kinetics Retractables – more than a Façade
The new Hütten Gaudi impressively shows what happens when technology and architecture combine. The cozy hospitality room, designed with lots of wood, features large glass façades facing three cardinal directions with an unobstructed view of the Leogang mountains, the Asitzbahn, and the spectacular downhill trails of the bike park. When twelve meters of these window fronts seamlessly disappear into the floor in two directions at the touch of a button, the protected interior opens up into a spacious terrace within seconds.
Thus, a space is created that adapts to the needs of the guests: wide and open when sun and clear air invite you to be outdoors, secure and intimate when wind and cold demand protection. The precision of Swiss engineering from HIRT kinetics remains invisible, yet its effect is omnipresent: an unparalleled sense of space that uniquely combines freedom and enjoyment. The project was realized within less than six months – just in time for the 2024 winter season.
What used to be a simple mountain pub has now become a place where nature and architecture, relaxation and experience, encounter and inspiration come together in a very special way.
When the old Hütten Gaudi was showing its age it had to make way and reinvented itself: A modern alpine restaurant was created in the same spot.
Experience Nature and Enjoy the Pursuit of Perfection
Integrating nature into daily life is one of the ideas behind HIRT kinetics. At the same time, a unity of supreme engineering, uncompromising quality, and an unparalleled sense of space is created. “Made in Switzerland” stands for precision, durability, and absolute safety. This standard is impressively demonstrated at Hütten Gaudi in Leogang: Three identical HIRT kinetics retractable façades of type SF 90 were installed. Each element is 4.09 meters long, 2.30 meters high, and weighs approximately 700 kilograms.
Despite their impressive dimensions, the glass surfaces glide gently and silently downwards. This is made possible by perfectly balanced counterweights and an independent control system for each element, which allows for both full opening and closing as well as intermediate positions – an advantage that particularly demonstrates its strength in the mountains with their changeable weather conditions. In addition to comfort and flexibility, the retractable fronts naturally also meet all official requirements for fire protection, accessibility, and operational safety. Their soundproofing also ensures that exuberant après-ski parties are just as possible as a protected retreat for cozy snacks.
HIRT kinetics is the art of bringing spaces to life and adapting them to people’s needs at any time. Every project is individually planned, implemented with attention to detail, and designed for maximum durability. Whether at alpine altitudes, in urban centers, or in climatically extreme regions of the world – HIRT kinetics creates places that inspire through perfection and uniqueness.
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