
This project for a small house in Sweden is a direct
and playful response to the owner's program. The site is mildly sloping, wooded
terrain some 100 meters from the shoreline.
The focus toward the outside spaces and the water beyond is realized in the
inflection of the house volume around a flat open area to the southwest, and
the enclosure of an entry court to the southeast. The bending of the house
volume around the grassy area is thought to effectively incorporate it into
the house such that is becomes an outdoor room, with the retaining wall to
the west giving that edge definition if not enclosure.
Inside the house, the main living room is double height, while the bedrooms
upstairs are of a minimal proportion. Downstairs a kitchen leads out to a
porch clad on all sides with wood slats. To the west, a study occupies a balcony
overlooking the living room, with a playroom underneath.
The foundations are inexpensively made with concrete blocks and hollow concrete
plank floor slabs. Above, materials and details follow conventional wood frame
construction, even as the image of the house departs from that of traditional
Swedish architecture. Completed in October 2001.






