The client specified that the garden be the direct focus of the project, due to its significant part in their decision to retreat from city life. Our proposal  creates a vertical addition to the garden, where indoor and outdoor spaces gradually blend and interact.

The house is situated near lake Mälaren to the west of the city of Stockholm.

The triangular foot print is the result of a steep slope that diagonally crosses the site.
It was important to avoid creating a shady northern side to the house that would make gardening problematic, therefore  the Garden House faces only east, west and south, investing in the southern side with a long, open façade.

 
A double height winter garden also functions as a natural pre-heater for circulating fresh air.

100 villas designed by 100 international architects selected by Herzog & de Meuron and curated by Ai Weiwei. Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China 2008-10.

The starting point of this proposal is a vertical experience as a complement to the horizontal condition of the Ordos plateau, a new topography that can take full advantage of its surroundings. The house starts with the pool at lower garden level and reaches up to the top roof terrace open to the sky. Interior spaces follow the movement, a rising spiral around the structural stairwell core. As a result, the program is distributed on a series of interior terraces that are interconnected visually yet which offer seclusion and differented spaces in section.

A low wall defines the garden. We propose birch trees standing in grass, all green in contrast to the sandy dry landscape.

Predominant materials are exposed concrete (facades, floors, ceiling and stair-core), plywood panels on interior walls, etched glass, and ceramic pools. All windows are fixed flush to the exterior, and mounted with stainless steel fixtures.

A gluelam timber construction in two levels.

A house organized as a spiralling sequence of four large rooms in four levels. These large spaces without a fixed hierarchy invite the inhabitants to organise their lives following their own preferences.

The floors are covered in black tiles, and the walls in smooth white plaster.

More or less mirrored in plan, the two units contain small adjustments in relation to the differences in orientation, light and views.

Facades are rendered in a deep blue plaster. Protruding oak window boxes add a three dimensional quality to the facade, enhancing the depth and massive character of the interior.

The site is located on the south western coast of Sweden in an old agricultural area gently sloping down towards the Kattegatt Sea (part of the Atlantic Ocean). In the midst of this vast and open cultivated landscape the plot lies in contrast to its surroundings as it is planted with many different trees and flowering bushes, lending it the character of a small botanic garden.

The big trees stand close together and the sun is filtered through a roof like foliage that covers most of the parcel. Adding to the idyllic setting, there is also a little brook meandering through the garden. As the trees and plants also function as a shield from the strong winds, we decided that the house had to be carefully inserted between the tree trunks.

Facade studies.

Entrance/Garden level.

Upper floor.

Curved glass walls with a movable wooden facade.

Model study.

A house on a rocky shoreline, arranged as a series of interior spaces and courtyards within a structure of glass and exposed concrete.

Housing typology for Arkitekthus:  A three storey wooden house with roof terrace.
AH042 is the third in a series of house typologies de signed for Arkitekthus. www.arkitekthus.se

House K is a thin block with cut-outs for light, double-heights and a roof terrace. Using the full width of the property it separates the front yard facing East from the garden in the South-West.

The house is built as a three-dimensional puzzle, where the double-height spaces mark the dining and living rooms. The interior forms one continuous space across two levels. As a result, movement through the house is characterised by visual shortcuts, spaces and overlapping activities. The upper level leads on to a rooftop terrace with sweeping views over Djursholm.

The shallow block provides spaces that can introduce light from several directions. This is enhanced by the two double-heights that also guide views diagonally through the house. The interior is finished with white plaster, and all floors and wooden details are white ash.

Facades are stained black  plywood panels, mounted in layers on a slowly grown pine framework.

The main structure is in-situ cast concrete. This is exposed in the cantilevered entrance canopy, which is only seven centimetres thick.

The facade is a laminated timber construction combined with large glass panes facing to the north.

The grass roof becomes a declining surface in the landscape facing the south.

Two cuts in the volume creates an entrance and a roof terrace.

Nominated for Best Wooden Building Award 2004.

This one family house is situated on the northern coast of the lake Mälaren in central Sweden.  A starting point has been the simple constructions of rural buildings and the architecture of Swedish barns and warehouses, some traces of which can still be seen between the many new type houses at Tidö-Lindö. The clients, a couple in their sixties, wanted a house for themselves with space to accommodate visiting children and friends.

The brief is defined in two parts: a complete living floor at entrance level, and an upper floor that is only partly finished, representing a future possible extension within the house. Aiming to meet a need for cheap construction, the plan is strictly based on a cc1200 module. Due to this and to the use of standard building components the costs were kept extremely low, at the time thirty to fifty percent less than average.

The prismatic exterior is clad with an oversized wooden panel made of heartwood of slowly grown pine and treated with red tar, a way of reinterpreting the technique of wooden roofs that has been in use for centuries in Scandinavia, mostly in the north and on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

Freely placed windows in two sizes punctuate the roof and the facades. Fixed screen-like shutters complement the varied interior light as well as the pattern of shadow and light of the outside. All exterior fittings and details are painted in the same colour as the facade.

In contrast to the deep red exterior, the interior space is very light. It is characterised by the three light shafts that rise through the attic to let the sunlight enter also from above. Two are situated at the short walls of the open living room, the third marks the position of the stair at the south gable.

Combining rooms in a suite with transverse passages the plan offers several alternative movements through the house. Windows are placed to further enhance the difference of the interior spaces by alternatingly directing the views low towards the garden, far away towards the lake and the horizon, or high up at the trees and the sky above.

Architects: Bolle Tham, Martin Videgård
Collaborators: John Billberg, Fredrik Olsson, Claes Sörstedt, Måns Tham.