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Architects: Anders Berensson Architects
- Area: 18 m²
- Year: 2017
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Photographs:Anders Berensson Architects
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Manufacturers: Nytec, ROCKWOOL, Setra
Text description provided by the architects. Anders Berensson Architects has designed and partly built an extension to a house in the Stockholm archipelago. To keep a low budget and still being able to elaborate with architecture the office divided the house into two categories.
“The house box” that is designed like a simple box to be built on site with local materials and building techniques and the “Prefabricated architectural elements” that are designed and prefabricated by the architects and later inserted into the house during the building process.
The house is designed with a focus on simplicity and function just big enough to host a sleeping area and a small space for working. The office then focused on designing two custom-made windows that could be built and prefabricated by the architects for those two spaces and purposes.
One window to look towards the outside fields while working and one window to look towards the sky when resting or falling asleep. Another goal with the design was to redefine the idea of a window as a flat ready-made glass piece into an architectural element that creates its own space with a clear focus towards the outside.
This goal led to the design of a sky tower one can crawl into when being in bed totally dedicated to the sky and one corner window with a desk inserted to it that creates a work space on the inside and table for flowers on the outside with a clear focus and direction to the outside field.
The Sky Tower
Looking towards a starry sky when falling asleep is a countryside luxury. We wanted to enhance that feeling by making a round tower dedicated to that view where you can lay down in bed and only see and focus on the sky above. At day time the tower takes in a lot of light and is a good place to sit and read. At night time it is the perfect place to study the stars and space.
The outside of the tower is cladded with overlapping boards. There is a local tradition of making jig saw patterns in this type of façade so we decided to design a pattern of big animals, amphibians, birds, flowers and fishes that are living in the archipelago and the Baltic Sea.
The Desk window
The Stockholm archipelago is known for its fantastic flora of wild flowers, outside the house lies a meadow with many of the species represented. We designed this window to focus on this local treasury. The spruce board ceiling continues seamlessly above the window and protrudes long enough to cover the sky and direct sun light framing a view towards the meadow. A desk is inserted through the corner window.
On the outside the desk I made out of terracotta red concrete with holes for flowers to grow. The inside of the desk is made of birch plywood with holes cut out for different purposes. The biggest hole is for sitting in the corner looking out. A bench going under the desk in the corner creates divan type of chair where the whole becomes the armrest. The mid-size holes are for ventilation, cables, lamps, and pencils, the tiny holes are pencil sharpeners.
