The wooden house or Blockhaus owes its name to the ancient Blockbau construction technique, that is to say horizontally stacked newly-roughed logs fitted together at the corners. This built-up construction usually rests on a stone base to prevent the beams from decaying in contact with the ground. Common features of almost all of them are the low ceilings and small windows to reduce heat loss, and double-pitched sloping roofs to protect from the elements.

Harmoniously set in the environment, these homes are simple and essential, almost completely devoid of decorative elements with the exception of some wooden carvings that personalize the balustrades of the balconies or the frames of the doors and windows.
The only ornament is the multitude of flowers in the windows that, in summer, enliven the infinite shades of wood with splashes of colour.

The variety in the chromatic range of the beams also contributes to always rendering these homes different from one another. Often the Blockhaus is a single-family dwelling, since its construction is limited in size to the length of the beams. In Sappada there are also frequent examples of multi-family houses, built using extensions that allowed the Blockbau walls to be extended, as we will see on our way through the next hamlets of Cottern, Hoffe, and Fontana.

In the hamlet of Cottern, on the left, stands a crucifix with the numerous tools that are mentioned in the evangelical narration of the crucifixion of Christ and the double-family house, the s’Krumpm – s’Gaigerlan. The road continues along through the Hoffe hamlet, with other examples of wooden houses. In front of the chapel dedicated to San Giovanni Bosco there is a small square, created by the demolition of a building in the 1960s.