Hasta La Ideas

Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune will present a kit-of-parts for a prefabricated Scandinavian house in Milan this April (+ slideshow).

“The prefab/kit house market generally prefers fake historical over contemporary,” says Claesson Koivisto Rune, “and it is more than common that an architect has not been involved at all.” The team was keen to avoid this conservative approach and wanted to come up with a modern design that reflected current Swedish architecture.

With Tind House, they developed distinctive contemporary details for the roof shape, windows and doors of the flexible system, which can be constructed as a single-storey residence for a couple or a family home with two or three floors.

Each house features a roof with a gentle incline to match the housing vernacular in Sweden. The peak of the roof is flat, which the designers compare to the profiles of the Scandinavian Mountains.

Windows or skylights are generously sized to offer the best possible views and their frames are bevelled on the outside to create a rhythm with the rest of the facade, but each one sits flush with the interior walls.

“The greatest challenge was to meet the demands for a client-flexible house with maintained architectural integrity,” architect Mårten Claesson told Dezeen. “We had to establish a couple of strong feature principles – the roof shape, the full cut-out of windows and doors, and their side alignment between different floor and roof levels – that would define a house that could vary in size, colour and number of floors.”

Tind House is designed to sit on a level plan, but can easily be adapted to negotiate a sloping site. The layout can also be altered to suit different occupants and locations.

Ordinarily, the entrance and staircase are positioned at the front of the building and lead through to living and dining rooms at the back. Utility rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are placed at the sides, plus extra bedrooms and bathrooms occupy the upstairs floors on the two- and three-storey buildings.

The house is manufactured by Swedish house builder Fiskarhedenvillan and will be presented at the Globo Art Space in Milan.

Claesson Koivisto Rune comprises a team of designers and architects, whose projects includes lighting and furniture, as well as architecture. They recently presented a collection of colourful pendant lamps and a set of solid brass coat hooks as part of Stockholm Design Week. See more design by Claesson Koivisto Rune, including a house on the Baltic island of Öland.

Other prefabricated houses we’ve featured include one in Portugal that costs the same as a family car and another home that’s lifted into place by a helicopter. See more prefabricated buildings on Dezeen.

Images are by Peter Guthrie.

Here’s a project decription from Claesson Koivisto Rune:

Claesson Koivisto Rune at Globo Art Space – Tind house

Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects is showing for the first time to an international audience their new house called Tind. Tind is a prefab house and represents a brand new typology for this particular field.

Globo being a manufacturer of sanitary porcelain, it is perhaps peculiar to show architecture during the Salone del Mobile. But Globo Art Space is not a commercial scene but a new gallery space offered by Globo to promote art, architecture and related culture in general.

Claesson Koivisto Rune is also a product and furniture design practice, but is during this event proud to present their architecture, by showing their most recent project. It will also be an example of the Scandinavian approach to living, not in the usual historic, modernistic context, but right now, right here.

The Tind* house is a new prefab house by Swedish Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects. Manufactured by Fiskarhedenvillan and provided to clients as a complete building kit.

The prefab/kit house market is traditionally conservative and generally prefers fake historical over contemporary. And it is more than common that an architect has not been involved at all. If this is from neglect on the manufacturers’ side or arrogance from the architects’ is difficult to know. What we do know, is that it is time for change.

We have built a house built on a concept built on a set of features. The prefab house needs to be flexible in size and configuration to accomodate individual families’ needs and individual locations. So in order to maintain the houses’ architectural integrity it is some strong features rather than exact dimensions that are important.

The first feature is the roof:

The traditional Swedish one-family house has a single-pitch roof. With its pitch angle not as steep as in Germany and not as gentle as in Italy, but in between. The Tind house’s roof starts with this typical Swedish pitch. But then the peak is cut off. So that the roof becomes somewhat of a hybrid between single-pitch and flat.

The second feature is the window niches:

First, windows are few, but big, and allocated to the most important walls, rather than many, small and on every wall. Second, every opening, window or door, is flush with the interior. Furthermore the thicknesses of the joists are disguised by bevelling the niche. This allows the house to become a rhythmic composition of wall and void, wall and void. Rather than the usual volume with punched holes.

The third feature is alignment:

The division between roof and walls is clear and sharp; like a waistline. Sharp is also the one-side alignment between windows on overlying floors. Every line and every cut aligns with another; with the next.

The interior layout is generous in spatial flow and efficient in actual flow. The entrance and staircase is at the core. Directly onward lies the communal living, dining and kitchen area. A second, side entranceway goes through a combined storage and wash room. For brushing off your shoes or dog from a muddy walk in the forest before entering the living areas. Bedrooms and bathrooms are either upstairs, downstairs or to the side end of the house. The general ambience is that of outdoor and indoor being connected.

* Tind is Norwegian for Mountain Peak. One difference between the Scandian mountain range and most other mountain ranges, such as the Alps, is the lack of sharp pointed peaks. This because the last big ice age shaved them off when retracting. In Scandinavia we find our mountains particularly beautiful because of this feature.

Above: Tind house one – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house one – facades

Above: Tind house two – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house two – first floor plan

Above: Tind house two – facades

Above: Tind house three – ground floor plan

Above: Tind house three – first floor plan

Above: Tind house three – second floor plan

Above: Tind house three – facades

The post Tind House by
Claesson Koivisto Rune appeared first on Dezeen.

Stockholm 2013: Swedish designers Claesson Koivisto Rune, Monica Förster and Folkform have collaborated with 400-year-old fine metals company Skultuna to produce this collection of brass objects.

For Stockholm Design Week, Skultuna’s brassworks teamed up with Stockholm studio Claesson Koivisto Rune to produce Face, three coat hooks made of solid brass (above and below).

Stockholm-based designer Monica Förster came up with a series of spun brass flower pots in three sizes (top), while design duo Folkform created a bookend based on geometric shapes (bottom).

Skultuna was founded in the Swedish town of the same name in 1607, and remains under royal warrant to produce fine metal objects such as chandeliers, candlesticks and cufflinks. In 2011, Venetian designer Luca Nichetto presented a series of brass bowls for the brand.

Other products launching in Stockholm this week include a collection of porcelain and wood pendant lamps and a chair that can be dressed up in an assortment of garments – see more products from Stockholm Design Week 2013.

See all coat hooks »
See all brass »

Here’s some more information from Skultuna:

Face wall hangers by Claesson Koivisto Rune

Face is a series of three wall hangers designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune for Skultuna. The wall hangers are cast in solid brass and highly polished to create an almost mirror like surface. The wall hangers are in the last stages of development and will be released during the spring of 2013. Skultuna is one of the oldest companies in the world, founded in the year 1607 as a brass foundry by King Karl IX.

Flower Pots by Monica Förster

Some time ago the Swedish design icon Monica Förster met up with Viktor Blomqvist, managing director of Skultuna and discusses a possible design cooperation. Skultuna is one of the oldest companies in the world, founded in the year 1607 as a brass foundry by King Karl IX. Staying true to the historic production methods of Skultuna, Monica Förster and her design studio came up with a series of three Flower Pots made in the very old method of metal spinning. Metal spinning is a production method that has been in constant use during the last centuries in Skultuna and makes it possible to make large round three dimensional objects out of sheet metal. The Flower Pots resemble classical pots made of terracotta with a small inclination in the lower part. The Flower Pots comes in three sizes and are made of highly polished brass plate.

Bookend by Folkform

The Bookend is the latest product from the red hot Swedish designer duo called Folkform. With its geometrical sharp shapes and the highly polished surface, the Bookend is a striking composition. The Bookend is in the last stage of development and will be released during the spring of 2013. Folkform consists of designers Anna Holmquist and Chandra Ahlsell that began their partnership in 2005. The Stockholm-based studio is already represented in the Swedish National Art collection and the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. Folkform has previously designed the popular candlestick Collage for Skultuna.

The post Brassware by
Skultuna appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune have completed a house on the coast of a Baltic island, with grey sealant drawing graphic lines across the white concrete facade.

Villa Widlund on the island of Öland was constructed in solid white concrete, rather than painted or pigmented on the surface, and prefabricated to ensure the precise angles required for each slab.

Slanted walls and roofs make the building narrower in the middle, separating the two-storeys of bedrooms at the back from a double-height communal space at the front.

See all our stories about Claesson Koivisto Rune »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Villa Widlund vacation house
Öland, Sweden

This house is like a funnel of light, space and sea views. The location is the west coast of the Baltic island of Öland.

The white concrete box is “corsetted” in the middle, creating slightly sheared wall and roof angles.

This gives the house both its direction and character, while also marking the difference between the rear private two-storey bedroom part and the communal double ceiling-height front part.

Precast concrete is perhaps not the most common choice for a private house at this scale, but was ideal for achieving the ultimate precision in manufacturing tolerance and colour/finish.

The concrete is not painted or surface-pigmented but solid white, which gives it a wonderful glow.

The joints between the concrete elements are carefully designed and positioned so that – instead of interfering with – they become part of the building’s geometry and expression.

The sealant in between is gray to enhance the graphic effect rather than matching the concrete surface.

Architect Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects, Stockholm

Project group Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto, Ola Rune, Deta Gemzell, Kumi Nakagaki, Kia Larsdotter, Lotti Engstrand

Project vacation house

Location Sandvik, Öland, Sweden

Client Karin Meindner and Jan Widlund

Designed 2008

Built 2011

Builder Folke Nilsson AB and Finja (precast concrete)

Construction/Material solid white precast concrete

Building area 220 m2

Milan 2011: Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune presented this series of sofas with different-height backrests for Italian brand Tacchini in Milan last week.

Intended to be grouped in clusters for contract interiors, the Highlife series comprises seats with the same arms, frames and cushions but interchangeable backs.

See all our stories about Milan 2011 »

More about Claesson Koivisto Rune on Dezeen »

More furniture on Dezeen »

The information below is from the designers:

HIGHLIFE seating collection

The basic sofa as landscape.

A family of sofas and easy chairs – fairly simple in form – with one prominent feature: different heights of the backrest. A family of furniture that creates dynamic spaces within interiors when used in contract spaces such as hotels etc.

The high backrest is today something that has gotten a renewed interest in the contract market, since the need of privacy has arrived with the use of cellphones, laptops, iPads, e-readers, etc.

However, most of the current designs often have three of their four sides high, giving a box-like appearance, ”closing off” these pieces into individual cocoons. We believe this is excessive. In our opinion, the greatest need is actually for visual privacy from behind.

By giving each piece in a small collection – where many of the components, such as armrests, pillows and seat cushions, are essentially the same – a different backrest height creates an interesting visual dynamic.

Backrest comfort can be created with a double row of loose pillows. This eliminates the need for a perfect backrest angle.

Detailing

Within our design team are people with tailoring experience. During the development of HIGHLIFE we played with familiar fasteners from clothing. Columns of buttons on the armrests and backrest are the result of this idea.

This detailing, together with carefully selected fabrics – chunkier for the backrest, smoother for the armrests and seat – help strengthen the appearance of the sofas as being ‘well dressed’, a bit like an elegant city gent.

See also:

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Baklava by Claesson Koivisto Rune	Vindobona by Claesson Koivisto Rune	Eve bracelet by Claesson Koivisto Rune

Here are some photos of the recently-completed Nobis Hotel by Swedish architects and designers Claesson Koivisto Rune, where the Dezeen team stayed during Stockholm Furniture Fair.

The architects renovated the interior of the two adjacent 19th century buildings that were originally used as residential apartments.

The 201 guest rooms have been furnished with many pieces specially designed for the hotel, including the Baklava lamps featured in our earlier story.

Photographs are by Åke E:son Lindman.

More projects by Claesson Koivisto Rune on Dezeen »
More hotels on Dezeen »

The following informataion is from the architects:

Towards the end of the 19th century, every self-respecting city erected what it considered to be its biggest and best hotel.

It was usually named Grand Hotel and was more often than not paid for out of the private pockets of wealthy barons. These hotels are often still in use today and have a charm that maybe only a century-old ideal of quality can give.

Today, such barons are rare and modern times do not allow an armada of Italian stucco carvers and French cabinet-makers to be called in.

But is this why today’s boutique- and design hotels seldom succeed in creating a worthy equivalent to the atmosphere that pervades classic 19th century interiors?

Could it be the difference in style ideals; Neoclassicism versus Modernism? Or is it something else that is being missed?

These were some of the thoughts we had concerning what sort of interior spaces we wanted to create at Nobis Hotel. Amongst other things we concluded that an uncompromising attitude together with a certain amount of eccentricity was necessary. No detail was less important than another. And matching is not about an ever-present, repeated furniture model or colour rather it is about a consolidated personal selection.

The entrance, lobby, lounge, corridors and rooms follow each other in a conscious succession where the character alters with every step.

The extravagant Gold Bar, the French-inspired 24/7 bistro facing Norrmalmstorg, the Italian trattoria Caina on the floor below, the relax area entirely clad in marble and the conference section with its original wooden panelling preserved have each been given a distinctly different character.

Despite the differences in character, each space flows into the next so that the spatial context is strong. Most of the work lay in making openings and spaces between the entrance, lobby, bar and ’living room’ – the generous lounge.

For example, the joist floor structure, an old addition to the original building, was completely removed in order to recreate the full height of the original inner courtyard.

The colour scheme and lighting design is also warm and subdued throughout. We call it Scandinavian dark blond. And as another recurring theme there are subtle patterns, in many cases derived from our own abstracted architectural drawings.

Like the corridor carpeting and the wallpaper in the conference section. Or like the hand-milled wardrobe doors which sprang from the rooms’ curtain pattern. A pattern that is in turn a play with a plan of a gallery building in Kumla we had recently completed.

Apart from the fixed interior features like, for example, the reception desk in rusted and waxed solid shipping steel, a large number of new furniture designs, textiles and lamps have been developed specifically for the hotel.

One hundred and seventy individual designs are included in the final assemblage.

About twenty were uniquely designed by us for this hotel and seventy more are variations of our earlier designs.

Architecturally speaking, there are few more complex undertakings than a hotel.

Our contribution to this project spanned approximately 20 months.

During this time, besides continuous nursing, the general architectural concept was laid out, the planning and restructuring of the central communal areas around lobby, lounge and restaurants were made as well as the furnishing of 201 guest rooms of which there are 115 variations.

Click for larger image

Project name: Nobis Hotel
Address: Norrmalmstorg 2-4
Client: Nobis Group, Sandro Catenacci

Click for larger image

Architect: Claesson Koivisto Rune Architects
Contractor: Ebab
Total floor area: 8750 kvm

Click for larger image

Year of construction of the south building: 1884-86
Year of construction of the north building: 1890-93
Re-construction year: 2010

See also:

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The Waterhouse at South Bund by NHDRO	Story Hotel by Koncept	Baklava by Claesson Koivisto Rune for Örsjö Belysning