Anna Schmitz

The project A House with Roots embarked on a narrative journey that rediscovered the spatial and cultural layers of the Upper Palatinate Bavarian Forest in southeastern Germany. This journey led to the Waldlerhaus, a regional byre dwelling in which people lived with and from the forest, sharing one roof with their animals. Over time, it was shaped by its historical roots as well as by the stories and rituals passed down through generations, which brought each Waldlerhaus to life.

These stories, folk tales, and rituals often narrate the mythical landscape and its legendary creatures. This intertwinement between the living environment and humans underlines its former relationship.

Yet the landscape did not only inspire storytelling; it also shaped the Waldlerhaus itself. Through an understanding of the surrounding flora and environmental conditions, their influence found expression in the building’s tectonics and local craft traditions, ultimately giving the Waldlerhaus its distinctive characteristics. As the landscape has changed over the centuries, so too have its people, spaces, and stories. With these transformations, however, the Waldlerhaus and its stories are gradually disappearing from both the living and cultural landscape, raising the vital question of how this cultural knowledge can be preserved and reimagined within a contemporary context.

To carry forward the knowledge embedded in this building typology and to give its stories a home, the spatial approach proposes a “House of Stories.” The project establishes a dialogue between an existing Waldlerhaus and a new architectural proposal. They communicate through construction techniques, materials, and a shared programme of storytelling and craftsmanship that preserves, remembers, and transmits stories. The programme and space actively encourage creativity, as well as the re-embodiment and creation of stories through spoken language, physical interpretation, and visual craft.

This project is a personal appreciation of a vanishing cultural landscape. It follows unfamiliar paths in search of answers that create spaces that speak of imagination and invite others to imagine, where the stories of the past, present, and future can be carried forward.