Five years after an avalanche destroyed a chapel belonging to a group of farmers in the Austrian alps, local firm Innauer-Matt Architekten has completed a replacement featuring a steeply pitched roof and concrete walls inset with flat stones.

The chapel is located in the Bregenzerwald valley in western Austria, where the transhumance farming method is still practised and livestock is moved between winter and summer pastures.
Innauer-Matt Architekten designed the building for a cooperative of farmers that owns and occupies a pasture area called Wirmboden, situated at the base of the Kanisfluh mountain.

Wirmboden's previous chapel had stood for 32 years before it was ruined by an avalanche in 2012 that also destroyed several of the farmers' huts. The studio's task was to develop a proposal for a new building that was acceptable to the whole community and would eventually be built by them over the course of three years.

"With the client being a collective of farmers, each with their own differing opinion, the difficulties were not so much of architectural but rather of interpersonal nature," suggested the architects.
"What we see now at Wirmboden is a symbol for the collective spirit of this very diverse group of people."

The chapel's compact form and tall gables are intended to complement the existing buildings and the region's architectural vernacular, as well as referencing traditional religious buildings.
The steep roof helps to prevent snow buildi...