Residential & Studio House Lechner / Lechner & Lechner Architects

Architects: Lechner & Lechner Architects
Area: 300 m²
Year: 2010
Photography: Julian Höck
Lead Architects: Christine Lechner, Horst Lechner
Design Team: Christine Lechner, Horst Lechner
City: Salzburg
Country: Austria

The Residential & Studio House Lechner occupies a compact site in the historic center of Salzburg, bringing together architectural practice, domestic life and outdoor space within a vertically organized structure. Designed by Christine and Horst Lechner, the project developed from the architects’ earlier conversion of a former motorcycle workshop into their studio during the 1990s. The subsequent residential addition extends this mixed-use arrangement upward, placing private living spaces above the workplace while creating an extensive planted landscape despite the site’s limited area. Terraces, water surfaces and a small pool establish outdoor spaces around the principal living level, while extensive glazing strengthens the relationship between interior and vegetation. Photovoltaic panels form part of an environmental strategy intended to increase the building’s energy autonomy. Through its compact organization, integration of landscape and combination of work and living, the project proposes an alternative model for inhabiting the dense historic city.

We appreciate materials that feel raw and “authentic.” Wood surfaces, raw iron, and exposed concrete—used where required for fire protection or in contact with the ground. Nothing is concealed; rather, we deliberately showcase the inherent beauty of materials in their raw state.
Interview with Christine Lechner of Lechner & Lechner Architects

Residential & studio house lechner / lechner & lechner architects

The architecture begins with the site’s industrial past. During the 1990s, Christine and Horst Lechner transformed a former motorcycle workshop into their architecture studio, choosing to retain elements of the existing structure rather than erase its character. New interventions were clearly distinguished from the original fabric, while suspended cabinets attached along the existing steel beams provided a flexible system for organizing the studio. These elements can define working areas, accommodate drawings and presentations, or allow the large hall to be adapted for exhibitions and events. When the residential building was later introduced, the studio remained the public and productive base of the property, while the private spaces developed vertically above it, recalling the workspaces beneath living areas at Gwathmey’s Amagansett residence. This arrangement establishes a contemporary interpretation of the traditional European townhouse, in which work and domestic life occupy different levels of the same building rather than being separated into distant urban zones.

The compact site also prompted the architects to reconsider the relationship between built and unbuilt space. Instead of maximizing the available building area, the project deliberately preserves substantial outdoor space on the main living level. An intensively planted roof garden, terraces, water surfaces and a small pool surround the house, creating the possibility of moving around the building and producing a spatial condition normally associated with a detached home. The principal living floor is closely integrated with this landscape through floor-to-ceiling glazing and wide sliding elements. When opened, these surfaces allow the interior to extend toward the planted areas, forming a continuous sequence between living space, garden and city. Views and reflections maintain a visual connection with Salzburg, while the vegetation establishes a degree of privacy within the dense historic surroundings.

Over time, the landscape has become an increasingly defining part of the architecture. Trees, shrubs, climbing plants and planted terraces have matured into a small urban habitat within the historic center, demonstrating that vegetation can function as an active component of architectural space rather than as secondary decoration. This relationship between density and nature is central to the project’s urban argument. Instead of locating greenery at the edge of the city, the house incorporates it directly into an existing and highly constrained urban site. Environmental performance extends this principle through approximately 35 square meters of photovoltaic panels, which generate more electricity over a year than is required for heating, household appliances and lighting. The original energy concept also explored renewable energy, water treatment and the productive potential of planted areas, making technological systems part of a broader ambition for urban independence.

The material and spatial language of the house reinforces its position between historical continuity and contemporary intervention. Durable materials, including lime-based surfaces, establish a tactile relationship with Salzburg’s architectural tradition without reproducing historical forms. The project instead seeks to continue the character of the city through contemporary means. Its organization similarly challenges the functional separation that shaped much twentieth-century urban planning by bringing work, residence and recreation back into proximity. The studio occupies the lower part of the property, private life unfolds above, and the planted outdoor spaces provide recreation and contact with nature, while the wider amenities of Salzburg remain accessible within the existing urban fabric. The result is a compact model in which density does not necessarily require the sacrifice of open space or privacy.

More than fifteen years after completion, the Residential & Studio House Lechner can be understood as a small-scale proposition for how established cities might accommodate contemporary forms of living without consuming additional land. Its significance lies not simply in fitting a residence onto a constrained site, but in reconsidering what urban density can provide. The project combines the proximity and mixed-use character of the European city with qualities often associated with suburban or rural living, including greenery, privacy, outdoor space, and a degree of energy autonomy. By retaining the existing studio, integrating landscape into the building’s organization and maintaining a direct relationship with the surrounding city, Lechner & Lechner Architects present density as an opportunity for spatial and environmental richness. The house ultimately proposes that urban freedom can be found not by leaving the city, but by discovering new ways to live within its existing fabric.