Text description provided by the architects. This is a small house for two historians and their children, overlooking lake Mjøsa at an abandoned farm which they have inherited. The existing old house in the yard is not insulated and used for guests and storage. The existing barn has to be torn down because the main load bearing construction is rotten. However, the cladding of the barn, more than 100 years old, is still of good quality and now used for exterior cladding and terraces of the new house. Some of the old planks are cut with a varied with at the root of the tree compared to the top. These diagonals are used to adjust the horizontality of the cladding towards the sloping lines of the ground and the angle of the roof. The spatial complexity, exposed construction, and material simplicity of the barn has also inspired and informed the new architecture in a wider sense.
From the main entrance to the south, the interior organization has a dual focus, both opening the whole facade towards the lake to the north, and at the same time stepping the central space downwards to the terrace at the west side of the house.
The series of common spaces at these sloping axes are visually connected, opening the full length of the house. Above, there is a children's loft, below the parent's part of the house. The main section rises towards the south to allow for the low winter sun to enter the building. The glazed and lofty winter garden works as a heat collector at winter time, and heat buffer for the rest of the house at summer time.
The area is about 150 m2, main construction and surfaces made of wood, windows lined with aluminum, ground floor in exposed concrete. There is 40 cm of rock wool insulation in the roof construction, 20 cm in the walls. There is water based underfloor heating combined with a wood burning stove.
