Located in Havsdalen, Buskerud, Norway, Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter created a 130sqm or 1400sqf holiday home for a family that includes 4 bedrooms in the “body” of the lodge, a living area in one wing, a dining and kitchen in the second, while the third, detached wing features a guest suite. The entry to the home is on the lower level. The final design is a timber clad cabin with short wings that fan away evenly from the central axis of an elongated body before ending in large window glazings.
The mountainside that the residence sits on is a sparsely treed site and the all wood skin of the home has been left natural to weather into a soft grey patina allowing the home to settle visually into its rolling landscape.
Even in winter, surrounded by snow, the silvery hue of the vertical siding blends peacefully within its surroundings.
With each of the four ends featuring a peaked roofline that the window glazings follow, the architects chose to repeat this glazing element on the sides of the home.
By replacing the standard rectangular windows with peaked versions, the rigid geometry of the home is broken up into a less static pattern.
While the windows are all strong design features within the facade, the entry is not. Access to the cabin is through a doorway beneath the cantilevered sections and with the doorway clad in the same vertical timber as the facade, access to the inner volumes is somewhat hidden. After entering the home, the all-wood facade persona continues with the exception of the polished concrete floor. A wooden staircase leads to the social zones upstairs.
The entry stairs leads upstairs next to the kitchen and the architects took advantage of this location to create a storage cabinet for firewood easily accessible for both the living and dining room fireplaces. While the living room fireplace is a suspended model, the dining room features a floor-mounted version that just happens to line up with the top of the kitchen peninsula. This peninsula holds both the cooktop and the sink as well as a suspended bar area. The floor on this level of the home is wood while the kitchen peninsula is made of glass fibre reinforced concrete.
The walls and floors of the home are lined with knot free timber in a natural finish and this same pale wood aesthetic is continued through the cabinetry of the kitchen and other various built in areas of the home such as the bench seating next to the window.
The dining zone also features a built in bench with upholstered foam seating, perfect for a quiet place to relax and enjoy the vista when the room is not used for dining. When eating is on the agenda, two lengths of laminated wood create the large dining table. A cluster of clear bulbs formulates the chandelier. This grouping is poignantly simple while at the same time non-obtrusive to the panoramic mountainside.
The lighting used in the dining area is the same lighting used over the bar, only in the kitchen they are installed in a geometric line rather then grouped in a cluster.
The social zone merges onto the long axle of the home and this is where the private zone of the home is situated. First in line is a bathroom and closet area before continuing down the hall to first the Master Bedroom, then 3 smaller bedrooms and finally a family lounge area in the back. Narrow stairs lead up to a small children’s mezzanine just outside the first of the three small bedrooms.
The mezzanine area in the hall is a fun tree fort concept, perfect for the kid’s as is the children’s lounge at the end of the hall. The lounge features the same wall of glazings as the social zones and these glazings look out to views of the adjacent ski slope.
The mezzanine and lounge areas are important spaces for the children as the bedrooms are small and not designed for daytime living. The bedrooms are for sleeping and the lounge is for playing.
Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter designed a private and contained guest suite within the mountain lodge via the detached wing that angles away from the rest of the home. Completely seperate, guests have their own space while at the same time they are only a few feet away from the hub of activity.
Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter
Photography by Soren Harder Nielsen and Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter
