Marge Arkitekter’s oversailing roof helps provide summerhouse with protection from the elements and privacy, alongside visual intrusion on the Äspet nature reserve
This small summer house nestles among the Baltic Sea sand dunes at the Äspet nature reserve near Åhus on Sweden’s southern tip. With the family’s old 1910 house already on the site, it is part of a small complex of three new additions – the others being a sauna and guest house.
Neighbouring properties encroach to the north and south and there is a public beach to the east; so Stockholm firm Marge Arkitekter has created a protected, effectively ‘private’ exterior space for the family. In addition, being a holiday home, they needed a place that could be closed down over the winter months.
This ‘maintenance free’ aspect of the project resulted in the villa’s primary move – the oversailing pre-patinated copper roof protecting both the cladding and windows below it. But it is also carried through in more subtle ways. A second skin of large wooden shutters meets the need to fully close the building upon leaving, while in summertime, with the shutters retracted, the ‘winter’ portions of the wall are completely concealed. This difference between summer and winter modes is accentuated by the materiality – worked Kebony panels for fixed parts and freer, more rustic versions for the sliding.
Internally, a large, tiled stove is the central feature of the living area. Looking out from here, views extend to the horizon and the sea, yet the characteristic roof remains the sole element visible from the beach.
Marge Arkitekter with Jan-Carlos Kucharek