Designed, planned, and built by Sophie Kotter and Clemens Hoyer in 2019, KLEINHAUS is an experimental timber-construction project with a focus on sustainable, resource-saving, and regional materials. Inspired by its terraced hillside location, apple trees, and an old monastery wall, the small house is designed to integrate sensitively and phenomenologically with its surroundings. Its cubature follows the natural slope of the terrain, and this theme of multiple levels continues into the interior, creating a single, open-plan space for living, working, and sleeping. Instead of fixed partitions, the one-room space uses subtle shifts in level to define different zones, forming niches, seating areas, and platforms. A unique and central feature of the house is an apple tree that grows through the structure, serving as a living object. Inside, the material palette is raw and minimalist, with new insertions in concrete, birch plywood, and blackened steel, while original surfaces were preserved where possible. With the support of the clients, the project was realized in just six months. Credits Architects: Sophie Kotter and Clemens Hoyer Photography: Milan Loebner