Folded Roof House by Claesson Koivisto Rune

The popularity of pre-fab housing seems to be growing, despite the exhausting unoriginality of most of these housing communities.  Aluminium siding that looks like brick, plots of land razed of all trees, only to have new ones strategically placed, and one street after the next, exactly the same, down to the font of the house numbers.  It really is tiring. Luckily Swedish kit house manufacturer Arkitethus has realized that although the cost efficiency of pre-fab is sensible, that doesn’t mean they have to be ticky tocky.

Arkitethus offers kit homes from a variety of architects, in one two and three stories.  Our favourite is the Folded Roof House designed by architectural firm Claesson Koivisto Rune.  The anything but traditional one story home has 2 bedrooms, one on each end of the structure, separated by the open living room and kitchen.  The gable roof of the bedrooms created a folded roof plane, giving the house its name.  One of the beauties of this type of housing, is that it can be tailored to client needs, adding, for example a sauna or a guesthouse.  The interior of the home in these images reflects the natural settings of the location of the house, just outside of Stockholm.

Claesson Koivisto Rune is one of Sweden’s most respected multidisciplinary design firms. Founded in 1995, by former University College of Arts classmates Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune, the firm designs everything from small tabletop pieces, such as lamps to interiors and large-scale buildings.  The firm is represented internationally with a variety of projects being executed at any given moment.  Paula Antonelli, Design Curator at MOMA has heralded their work as ‘the epitome of the aesthetics of the new millennium’.  One of the firms greatest achievements to date was being the first Swedish architectural office to exhibit in 2004 Venice Biennale of Architecture’s international section.  With an intuitive design process, the firm doesn’t see itself as having one particular style, rather that each design branches out into other designs and ideas.

Considering the aesthetic view, it’s no surprise that Claesson Koivisto Rune is the same firm that was chosen to redesign the interior architecture of White Line member Hotel Skeppsholmen.  The original building was built in the early 1700′s, changing through a number of hands and purposes before finally being renovated into the warmly minimalist hotel it is today.  During the renovation process secondary walls were knocked down, damaged joists and floors were ripped out and replaced, and original details of the building, such as the 100-meter long hallways, were restored.  Underneath the fresh renovations many of the original touches were left in place.  Bricks used in the renovation are recycled from ruined country castles and the entrance floor is the original refinished flooring.  In addition to this careful renovation, the hotel and restaurant has also been awarded the Nordic Ecolabel, signalling a high level of eco consciousness and a low level of energy and resource consumption.

If you’d like to experience the award winning Swedish architecture for yourself book a few nights at Hotel Skeppsholmen.  More information about Claesson Koivisto Rune can be found at their inspiring website: www.ckr.se.  The Hotel Skeppsholmen has been honoured with a place in the Conde Nast Traveller Hot List for 2010.

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Photos by Louise Billgert.

Categories: Stockholm, Architecture

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter