We were hired by the Swedish architectural firm "Tema" to cooperate with them in an invited competition for a housing project in Örnsköldsvik, the Swedish Mecca of Ice Hockey.
The prices on apartments in northern Sweden are fairly low since there are a lot of available empty houses in that region, so the proposal needed to be cost efficient. While the floor plan were designed as efficient and simple as possible with cheap extravaganzas such as sight lines, zoning and so on, we put our efforts on making something unique with the outdoor spaces. Since the houses are laid out pointing towards the sea, they create a sloping space towards the ocean which in this case where filled with birch trees. We tried to make a façade that mimic the aesthetics of the birch trunk to get a building that corresponded with its surrounding environment. We put highly reflective and slightly tilted steel sheets between the windows, making a façade that mimic the pattern of a birch trunk and at the same time reflected the birch trees in the voids between the buildings. The result became quit poetic we must say.
Steel sheet façade
Site Plan
Floor Plan
Diagrams showing zoning, direct light, movement, construction lines, sight lines, options
Apartment
