Noah's House – a report from the building site

The design

A client wanted help to build a small summer house inside of an old shed. The shed is just next to the Baltic Sea and has been exposed to overflows every tenth year or so. Knowing that the house probably will be exposed to another overflow forced a specific design.
To build a totally waterproof house would be to expensive, so this house is constructed as a lizards tail. If one part of the building gets exposed to water that particular part can easily be replaced without affecting the rest of the building.
The whole building is constructed by spruce boards and spruce pillars and with no synthetic materials what so ever. The horizontal spruce boards can be taken away when exposed to water to dry and later be put back or be replaced by a new one. The insulation can easily be taken out and be replaced too.


plan


Section

A report from the building site

AB (Anders Berensson) worked as a carpenter on this project that turned out to be more like an architectural jam between AB and the client. The program and the building materials constantly changed with the clients daily mood swings and discoveries of cheap building materials. Sometimes the ideas turned out too be quite genius and fun; like putting a wire through the house to be able to drag the boat to its winter position with the clients jeep. Other times ideas had to be rejected such as building a huge hill in front of the house to protect it from huge waves.
Living on this remote island during the winter months while building the house could also be quite harsh, the house AB lived in had heating problems and a constant smell of manure. Despite some harsh condition, we are confident that the result of the design will be successful in the end.
In a couple of months we will know for sure.

The project started out with two days of cleaning. Big things that could not be removed by man power like a container for chemicals where pulled out from the house with the Jeep. This technique was later on refined to take up the boat.

The cleaned out shed

Inner walls and insulation completed

Inner materials almost done