In Norwegian Woods - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, June, 2001 by Peter Davey

It may seem odd to start an issue on group housing with a pair of houses in an Oslo suburb, but these are so responsive to landscape, that they suggest many possibilities for larger groupings of houses which could pay similar attention to nature and human response to it.

Oslo is one of the largest cities in the world in terms of area. It stretches from the neo-Classical core far up into the surrounding hills, where suburbs and forest increasingly blend. In the worst areas, this leads to slummification of the wild, but in the best parts, the two interact, bringing humanity and nature into creative conjunction. Lund Hagen's two attached houses at Furulund are a prime example of such a dialogue.

The site is squarish, sloping from north to south, on a corner of two roads in an area where nineteenth- and twentieth-century villas are scattered lightly through the woods. The basic plan of the new houses was generated by the twin desire to preserve the 25 best trees on the plot, and to avoid overlooking and overshadowing by existing buildings. So the L-shaped houses are arranged to open onto a double garden court which is divided by a thick (partly storage) wall which gives them a degree of privacy from each other. The garden courts face south-west, into a wooded gap between existing buildings.

The houses are completely different in plan. The upper (more northerly) one is based on a corridor that runs at garden level, double and single sided, south-west from the entrance to a covered belvedere at the far end of the garden. En route, it passes the master bedroom on the left, and the main family area which includes kitchen, dining and sitting and is dominated by a large fireplace. Next to this is a small flight of stairs which leads down to a little private study. Above is the children's area, from where a secret stair in the chimney breast goes up to a roof terrace above the living area.

The other house is fundamentally organized round the half levels of its stair. It has a car port tucked into its volume, and it is entered from the same side as the northern house. To the left is a double-height study, and the stairs go down to the children's level, where three sleeping cabins with sliding doors open off the communal area. They look out onto the garden court, to which each has access through the glass wall. If, instead of going down to the children's floor, you go up, you arrive in the living area, which is the spatial tour de force of the whole affair. Tall and long, it looks north towards the garden, but gains much of its atmosphere from a continuous rooflight which pours luminance down the largely blank south wall. A wide and generous bench follows the light and turns at the south end to form the base of the fireplace which again dominates the sitting area. Just at the turn, a large window is suddenly cut low into the wall to look out point blank into the branches of a fine mature birch tr ee, which gives the space privacy from the road. A further flight up from this level is the main bedroom, slung over the car port where there is access to the mezzanine of the study. Another short stair leads to the private roof terrace over the living area.

Construction is lightweight concrete block, rendered outside and in, with internal surfaces lightly dragged to give them texture. Upper floors on the entrance (east) side are clad in thin natural oak strips of varying length and thickness; behind are small windows which get some light and glimpses of view through the slits. The effect from the road is dark and a little austere, but once the wooden entrance doors are open, the spaces are welcoming, with floors of solid oiled ash, slate and oiled concrete, ash joinery and light birch slatted ceilings.

Of course, such finishes would be impossible in less expensive houses, as would all the many subtle manoevres in plan and section. But the thoughtfulness with which site and family needs have been related do repay study, and could inform housing on a considerably larger scale.

Architech

Lund Hagen Arkitekter AS. Osio

Project team

Svein Lund, Karine Denizou, Arvid Pedersen, Andreas Poulsson

Photographs

Espen Gronli, Jiri Harvan, Morten Brn, Svein Lund