Hasta La Ideas

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.

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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