Anders Berensson . photos: © Anders Berensson & Tom Öhlin . + archdaily
Anders Berensson Architects has designed a building that is half an office, half an outdoor meeting space in the Royal National City Park Norra Djurgården in Stockholm. The house is constructed as a framework of wood beams filled with wall panels and glass at the top part and left open at the bottom part creating a weather-protected outdoor space.
The building is an extension of an existing office building inhabited by Swedish outdoor and shoe company Lundhags. Building in the royal national park we tried to do as little excavations as possible. Therefore, we decided to design a house on wood pillars standing on the sloping terrain.
The top part of the house follows the shape of the existing building with a slight tilt in direction to follow the existing landscape. This part is directed towards the forest looking into the crowns and trunks of the old trees creating a calm sensation. The bottom part is a concrete amphitheater cast on top of the existing terrain. Standing in a slope the bottom part is closed to the road in the north and opened towards the forest while sloping whit levels towards a stage for outdoor events.
Designing an office/outdoor structure in the forest we tried to find a balance between an office building whit strict geometry and a traditional cabin. We decided to follow the shape of the existing building but design it as a wood framework. The primary structure is made of glulam beams and pillars, the wood frame is then filled with either glass windows, wood panel walls, or left open reinforced with wooden crosses. All materials on the inside are made from wood, the ceiling is made from pine tree boards, the walls from pine plywood. The floor is made as an installation grid where electricity and data are installed under a spruce tree grid surrounding oak boards.
All details are kept simple either in wood or as black painted steel. Windows are milled into the wood pillars and beams, all lamps are cladded with the same wood as the ceiling they sit on. Most furniture is made from leftover pieces from the building site. The tables are made from the same plywood sheets as the wall cladding, The lounge is made from leftover glulam timber and other wood boards from the house. The chairs are cladded whit shoe leather from the Lundhags factory. All details that needed to be built in steel are painted black and, on the outside, sometimes shaped like animals from the royal national park. Some who live there today and some that we hope one day will stroll back underneath the house.
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