Steirereck am Pogusch Restaurant / PPAG architects
- region:
2957 sqm
year:
2023
Text description provided by the architects. PAG Architects has unveiled Steirereck am Pogusch, an offshoot of Vienna’s Steirereck, which has been among the world’s top gastronomic establishments for many decades. Pogusch is a 1,059-meter pass through the Austrian Alps, and Steirereck am Pogusch is at the top of the pass, surrounded by its own farmland.
In tackling the conversion and extension project, gourmet chef Heinz Rietbauer and his wife Birgitte wanted to show how innovative and sustainable the gastronomic business is. The challenge was to blend a natural setting with a contemporary and highly developed catering business to ensure a harmonious future. Through various interventions, pre-existing buildings and additions form a village ensemble on the scale of a rural development in a mountain landscape.
For the most part, the striking new buildings are built into the hillside, strikingly integrating themselves into the surroundings of nature and the traditional built environment. The pre-existing buildings—a kitchen, a lodging, a stone house, and a log house, besides farming—were supplemented by new, related buildings. New buildings include new catering areas including a ‘Saletl’ for fine dining, fire kitchen (bar, grill, steam counter, farm shop and regulars table), distilleries, kitchens with all-in-one setup – and staff areas, garden kitchen in a small glass house, staff private and guest accommodation, and an extension of the visible and invisible infrastructure.
In the large glass house, which is a combination of a sophisticated greenhouse and living space that fertilize each other in atmosphere, there are integrated sleeping bunks, as well as a wellness area with sauna and fireplace. PPAG Architects also designed many details and furnishings to provide the project with ultra-modern Gesamtkunstwerk proportions – and transport the visitor into an extraordinary mountain world.
Here, self-care also means caring for the planet: emphasis has been placed on renewable energy supplies (heating, cooling, electricity), complemented by measures to reduce resource consumption (on-site food production, circular economy, composting, ecological selection of building materials) and reduction of energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide On the go. The new layout results in a hospitality project that is almost energy self-sufficient and resource efficient, despite its secluded location in the mountains. Steirereck am Pogusch is part of the “City of the Future” research program of the Austrian Ministry of Climate Protection and Technology.
