Prefabricated concrete walls were used for the rectangle shaped house. In close cooperation with a local concrete factory a special method was created for the house in order to get the right roughness for the facade. A lot of Ateljé Ö`s projects contain custom made components. Savannah 8 is no exception, but the difference is that everything in the house is industrially produced. The kitchen fan for example was made from a galvanized steel foot grate.

The interior consists of raw concrete and plywood. Technical installations and structural elements in the house are exaggerated instead of hidden out of sight.

As a counterweight to the industrial way of working a handful of tiles were pressed upside down into the concrete blocks as they were being cast. An element of ornamentation to break away from the prefab atmosphere.

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The different levels at the front and back of the house contribute to the shifting scale throughout the volumes.

The exterior is clad in blackened pine, while the interior features walls clad in plywood made from different veneers. Strategically placed windows highlight the verticality of the house and frame the surrounding tree tops, providing a different experience compared to the existing buildings’ horizontal panoramic views of the sea.

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The latter comparison, surprising at first, is easily explained: Johan Sundberg’s annual skiing holidays inspired him to study vernacular architecture in a similar climate outside his native Sweden. Cast building corners, apart from being a leisure time project for the client, freed the structure from diagonal stabilising elements. In the daytime, light shines through the gaps between the wooden planks of the façade, accentuating its clear, calm structure. Direct sunlight and sharp shadows are replaced by uniform, reflected light. The façade is structured like the scales of an animal, to protect the indoors from rain and wind. After dusk, the building becomes a cuttingedge light sculpture, floating amidst darkened trees and grasses. The light evokes the golden line appearing during sunrise or sunset above the sea, multiplied into a ghostlike image of the house, lit by a fire.

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The ground was left untouched so the houses floats above the rocks. Also above the rocks is it possible to walk around the houses on outdoor bridges and platforms, hung from the facade. The contrast between the sometimes rough climate and the easy summerlife was the guide to the design of the buildings. Construction of timber is covered with nearly maintenance-free materials. Painted parts are white according to the tradition of the coast.

The rounded roofs got their form from the surrounding rocks. The geometry of the plans is simple; one front room closest to the ocean for cooking, eating, and relation with people and a rear section for bedrooms and entrance hall. Large glasspanels can be slid to the side so that all rooms can be open towards the outer bridge.

The closely positioned guesthouse at 1.17 has a bedroom and a sauna. The interiors of the house is completetly covered with untreatened fir. When a low evening sun from west lightens the panel is the inner of the houses from the ocean a glowing eye catcher in a grey landscape.

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The original entrance, which is well established as fundamental to Liljevalchs and the experience of its architecture, will retain its primacy. Our addition provides more space for exhibitions, a secondary entrance, a museum shop, and the development of the café.

The original building has two levels: a basement with gallery spaces on top. The addition pretends to maintain the same arrangement, but in fact it’s a split-level plan with floors at six different elevations throughout the building. It is rectangular in form, cast like a great concrete block. Glass artist Ingegerd Råman, who has been working with us on the project, has decorated the façades with crystal clear bottle bottoms, creating a grid of glass.

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The house is narrow, but its openings facing out are wide, giving the interior the character of a niche like shelter in the open space of the landscape. While the roof maintains a consistent elevation throughout the house, the interior floor rises and falls in accordance with the surrounding terrain. This means the height of the ceiling varies within the main spaces, which are arranged in a continuous ring around the atrium. Within this continuous space, the smaller rooms are assembled in a number of solid blocks.

Inspired by the impressive materiality of Gotland’s vernacular agricultural architecture, the masonry construction has a natural plaster colour that has been mixed with carbon black, exterior metal parts made of oxidised zinc, and oak doors as well as windows that have been treated with tar oil. The large sliding glass windows are mounted on the surface of the exterior walls, according to the same principle as many barn doors. Also the interior doors are surface‐mounted, allowing the walls to appear unbroken.

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The competition was won by the section’s design which gracefully segregates the inner workings of a funeral chapel with flexible worship space above. The coffered slabs above could not contrast more with the brick shell as they meet at impossibly thin steel plates. This gap holds a dense concentration of thoughtful details; a conversion point of two radically different systems in keeping with Nyberg’s attitude towards making the most of a joint. The building is an essay in vague tectonics; an elevator core meets a stair at a thin mirrored piece of glass, a doorframe meets a wall via a sandwich of stacked plywood on its surface, and structure meets enclosed at aluminum-foil-clad concrete reflecting a blue tinted sky via the paint on the waffle slab’s edge. No matter how grey the Swedish winter gets, there are always bright blue skies in the Chapel in Höör.

The golden incandescence of the bulbs in the slab’s coffers contrast the cool blue daylight temperature light that floods through the crack between structure and enclosure. Caught between the thin steel spines and glazing’s frame that mediate this gap, the sun’s movement is traced on the smeared and projecting mortar joints of the wall via sharp lines of light. Despite the extreme contrast, this day lighting condition swells slowly in brightness and then fades. This transition can be glacial in pace—its subtleties almost imperceptible. Conversely it can vanish instantly, or intermittently flash as the clouds roll past the sun.

Every detail of the project is about making the most of the reveal. Nyberg would always state that gap between materials was an opportunity to “get something for free,” with an attitude towards expressive masonry that met in a fashion that glorified their collective part in the whole rather than emphasis on the individual unit. Then there are the pillars of weathering steel angles; bolted together in a cruciform pattern which clearly presents edges and thickness that rise triumphantly up only to blossom in four directions before they meet the slab. With precision, the same thin steel plates that hold the roof slab in precarious equilibrium with the brick shell serve to isolate the column capitals from what they support as they meet the exaggerated reveal between the slab’s coffers.

To those unfamiliar with Nyberg’s work, they may suspect that he was influenced by the Swedish master Sigurd Lewerentz. While the simplistic interpretations of his work suggests that he was following in Lewerentz’s footsteps, the reality of the situation could not be more contrary from the truth. To this day there are many myths about Lewerentz that are easily dispelled by understanding the relationship between these two masters. They had very different approaches to making buildings but shared a similar worldview and after meeting on the construction site of Lewerentz’s masterpiece, St. Peter’s Church in Klippan, they became inseparable colleagues. While Nyberg’s approach to design was dramatically different and perhaps more refined than the old master, he shared Lewerentz’s ability to create an architecture with a potential for rich poetic interpretation- and like Lewerentz, he rarely spoke outwardly about any intent or motivation for design other than to solve the problem of putting materials together in a thoughtful and purposeful manner. It is now up to us to visit, interpret and be moved by banal materials set in sublime juxtaposition.

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Against the grassy plains, the building presents as an interactive art sculpture made of rough and robust cuts. The house is laid with an angular and solid impermeable concrete floor and foundation, with walls made of expanded clay blocks that functions as insulation plastered in lime (as required by the building regulations). An external ladder is attached beside the main entrance, inviting observations of nature from above. The neutrality of the external palette is carried internally. However, Chavepayre divided the studio’s public and private programs with a habitable timber wall concealing a mezzanine – a cheeky solution to adding additional space due to size restrictions. The ground floor presents an open living area with kitchen bordering the walls. The timber partition hides guest area with a sleeping nook nestled into the thick wall, along with studio space, a toilet and a shower. The separation also disguises a staircase with an elongated landing and a throne-like bathtub (which peeks towards the landscape or into the living space) with bookshelves tucked on the surfaces. Upstairs lies the couple’s private quarters – a bedroom, balcony for birds, and an aqua-blue tiled bathroom with ocean views. Throughout, sightlines of each space are oriented to allow the landscape to consume the house. No partition becomes a missed opportunity.

At Birgitta’s insistence, the house is orientated closely towards a near-forgotten road, becoming a gatehouse between the public and private garden. In the warmer months, the house’s transparent facades punctured along the external walls dissolves to expanding the garden into a gathering space. In colder seasons, the couple retreats inside and operate within the timber vessel. It’s no surprise Collectif Encore was awarded the Kasper Salin award for the simplicity in Hamra’s design, ensuring that the most minute details are functional and immaculate. A simple kiss between the timber and stone in the stair details; being precise with the alignment of views towards the horizon; and the lime canvas façade capturing the sunset orange speckling through the tree’s silhouette – Hamra is methodically playful and poetic at each turn.

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Swedish photographer Andy Liffner has captured this place of devotion and dignity in all its beauty and complexity in the series of images below.

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