Total refurbishment of a 100 m² apartment in a functionalist apartment building in the outskirts of Oslo.
The project is about stripping back rather than adding. The floor and walls are sanded down to the structural layer, to be left exposed. Materials are added where necessary to create warmth, intimacy and subtly separating spaces. Massive boards of Douglas fir is added directly on top of the structural layer as low platforms for the more intimate functions of the house.
The apartment building is constructed in concrete with load bearing slabs and shear walls. The plan is essentially an open plan and the apartment is very narrow, with the potential quality of being connected to both sides of the building. The new plan enhances the length and sight lines through the house with a generous hall as a connecting space. Light wooden frames with sheets of fibreglass permit daylight to filter into the deep spaces of the plan.
A custom kitchen island cast in concrete with local aggregate mediates the space between kitchen and living room. A few place-built furniture pieces in pine and stained oak are added to create a warm niche in the kitchen, a place to tie your shoes, put your towels etc – constructed in the most direct and simple way possible. The material combination of the house is a composition of natural materials and surfaces, in the materials’ own colors, coming together as a whole, revealing the structural layers of the existing building.
The separation of architectonic elements provides the opportunity to change or replace building parts or adapt the structure to a new purpose, while the main structure remains. Together forming an aesthetic of something unfinished or in constant change. Text description by the architects.
