Skurusundet Ravine House
The tiny property located just southwest of the picturesque strait Skurusundet presented potential buyers with several obstacles in how to conceive a new house. Not only was the site a deep ravine between cliffs both to the east and the west. It was also barely accessible by road transport. The view from the more elevated parts of the site was stunning – overlooking the inlet to Stockholm – but was there a way to reach those elevated parts while adhering to imposed regulations and still maintain a viable building cost?
The beautiful area around the property was formerly used as a summer recreation spot for people with lesser means. They would be granted a tiny cottage for a period of time. Most of these tiny houses are now rapidly disappearing due to the proximity to Stockholm. This particular site had probably housed a bigger building as it was terraced all the way up through the ravine. At the bottom of the terraces there was a small “fishpond” of sorts with tumbling granite walls.
The building was conceived as a very strict three story house, where each story had its own direct access to the changing terrain levels outside. By moving back the building envelope partly into the side of the steep cliff, the additional height required for an extra story was made possible while keeping the impact minimal. Working with the existing terraces and levels and reusing the fishpond as a Palladio (Villa Barbaro a Maser) reference gave the project something out of the extraordinary, flirting with a typology normally used for much bigger scale projects.
Location: Skurusundet, Nacka, Sweden
Status: Building Permission
Gross Internal Area: 140 m2
Materials: Pine, Pine CLT, Concrete
Images: Kolman Boye Architects