Innsbruck-based architects Astearchitecture have completed a mountain-top viewing platform above a glacier in Tyrol, Austria.

The steel structure, completed last month, cantilevers nine metres over a ridge on Mount Isidor.

The following text is from Astearchitecture:

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Top of Tyrol by astearchitecture

The viewpoint platform on Mountain Isidor in Tyrol, Austria is a drawing in the snow, it forms an architectural edge walker and causes interplay between construction and landscape.

The orchestration and oversubscription of the existing topography transforms landscape into built architecture which mediates between statics and dynamics, between stagnancy and new perspectives.

Trail and platform are placed in brittle rock. Its lamellas will disappear in the snow for six month a year. Only the cantilevering bracings over the north wall will be visible in winter time.

Wind and sun will excavate the steal lamellas nearly like a sketch in the snow.
The extreme conditions of the nearby glacier effectuate visual transformations of the steel construction with masks of ice and snow.

The steel structure consists of a grillage of beams covered by gratings. The bracings in Corten-Steel cantilever 9 meter over the ridge. The forces are transferred into concrete foundations and rock anchors. The curved monolithic railing is made out of Corten-Steel.

The site is located on 3200m at the Stubai Glacier in Tyrol, Austria.