Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Hydroelectric Power Station, Winnebach

This is a project by monovolume architecture + design and it is located at Vintl, Italy. There are nine images for Hydroelectric Power Station, Winnebach.

: © Simon Constantini

Project images

Designer's statement

The hydroelectric power station is located near Winnebach brook in Dörfl (municipal territory of Vintl), at 800 m. above sea level. It’s partly built into the slope, since the building area was extremely reduced. The project consists in a simple but polygonal volume, which is formally adapted to the landscape and the local conditions.

The station is conceived as an artificial rock quarried out of the slope. This sensation is underlined by a very reduced use of materials (concrete, glass and steel) in their rougher form, as well as by the “veins” which cross the volume. These “veins” consist of light bands of layered glass and run around the building. At some specific points of those light bands a normal single glass delivers insight to the power station’s bowels.

The main building material is watertight concrete, which was pigmented with white mortar and after-treated with hydraulic jet in order to achieve a raw appearance. The building has two storeys — a ground floor and a basement. The basement shelters the generating set, the distributing unit and the wire room, control tank as well as a storage room. The generating set room extends to the whole building height and is accessible by ground floor. The ground floor itself contains the space for the utility companies and the control room of the power station.