Mountain House IV began as an all-concrete chalet built in the 1980s at the outermost edge of a high-altitude ski resort in the Alps of eastern France. Studio Razavi was commissioned to refurbish it completely, and two constraints set the terms from the start. Any change to the facades required landmarks approval, and the walls the new plan needed to alter were load-bearing concrete.
The studio let the exterior govern the interior. Every proposed change to the layout was weighed against its effect on the outside of the building, which kept the weathered patina of the existing facades intact. The intent is for the older surfaces and the new work to age toward each other over the next several years until they read as one building.
From the approach, the chalet still presents a rough-laid stone base, an upper volume clad in vertical timber boards, and a broad gabled roof with a deep overhang. A timber balcony projects from the upper floor, and the entrance sits low in the stone wall beneath a heavy wooden lintel.
Inside, the openings follow a hierarchy, with each room given its own relationship to the landscape. Beside the living room fireplace, a tall window is screened by full-height sheer curtains that filter the light coming off the snow. The dining area faces a wide window behind a translucent blind, which spreads daylight evenly across the table and the pale walls. In the bathroom, black walls surround a timber soaking tub, and a single small window set deep into the wall becomes the only bright surface in the room. Because each opening produces a different experience, every room is somewhere a person would go on purpose, and no part of the house is treated as secondary.
Pale timber boards run across the floors and follow the pitch of the ceilings, and white plaster covers the walls. The fireplace is clad in a veined gray stone that rises as a single faceted mass and is cut on an angle where it meets the sloping ceiling. Flush timber cabinetry sits beside it, and a slender metal balustrade encloses the stair opening next to the dining table, thin enough that the window behind it stays unobstructed.
