Norwegian studio Saunders Structure has created an island villa in an archipelago in Norway that’s cross-shaped in plan and acts as an observatory for viewing its environment.
Named Villa Austevoll, the challenge is situated on the island of Selbjørn, which kinds a part of an archipelago simply south of Bergen. The house incorporates three bedrooms and open-plan dwelling areas, every with its personal terrace that provides completely different views of land and sea.
It was commissioned by a pair who needed a house that would supply a cabin-like high quality with simplistic interiors that revered its coastal and hillside location.
To make sure the constructing didn’t closely affect the pure setting, Saunders Structure raised many of the residence above floor to guard the terrain.
The 285-square-metre cabin is fashioned from two volumes, the primary a triangular concrete quantity that recesses into the hillside and kinds a plinth for the primary physique of the house.
A linear staircase runs alongside the hillside and directs individuals to the decrease concrete quantity of the house, which incorporates an entrance corridor, utility areas and a spiral staircase that results in the adjoining, higher quantity.
An oak spiral staircase funnels mild into the darkish entrance corridor, which was clad in stained wooden, by means of a round skylight that was positioned immediately above the staircase and punctuates the roof of the higher flooring of the house.
Everything of the spiral staircase and its surrounding partitions had been constructed from mild oak and leads residents and guests immediately from the decrease concrete quantity to the house’s higher quantity.
The second quantity, and essential physique of the house, was positioned on high of the decrease concrete quantity and protrudes from the terrain on skinny metal pillars that present the construction with a floating high quality.
In plan, the higher stage of the house is formed like a cross and has floor-to-ceiling home windows at every finish of its 4 factors, offering Villa Austevoll with completely different vantage factors throughout the encircling panorama.
Not like the doorway corridor, the higher stage has a brilliant and ethereal look that’s achieved by means of mild wooden flooring and expanses of white panelling that cowl the partitions and ceiling.
Shared dwelling areas occupy the north and south-facing axis of the house, and have an open-plan design that’s separated by the spiral staircase on the centre of the area.
The dwelling space is situated within the north wing of the house and leads out to a terrace that’s sheltered by an overhanging roof.
On account of Villa Austevoll’s coastal location, wind and climate patterns knowledgeable the design and type of the house. This led the studio to include angular partitions in addition to prolonged partitions that shelter terraces.
The kitchen and eating space is ready inside the southern wing. It features a one-wall kitchen alongside your entire wall of the area that’s accompanied by an eight-seat eating desk on the centre of the wing.
Bedrooms, together with a major suite and two further bedrooms, occupy the japanese and western wings and likewise lead out to coated terraces.
Saunders Structure was based by Canadian architect Todd Saunders in 1998 and is predicated out of Bergen, Norway.
The studio has accomplished plenty of tasks in Canada and Norway together with a “ribbon-like” home in Ontario and a wood-clad villa close to Bergen that overlooks Lake Nordås.
The images is by Ivar Kvaal.
