Hölick Sea Resort has operated for many years as a traditional tenting campground 300 km north of Stockholm. It sits at the tip of a peninsula, surrounded by sandy beaches and natural forest. The resort already had a few small cabins but the owners wanted to add some more modern cabins to appeal to a wider clientèle. They approached architect Mats Edlund, who collaborated with architects Henrietta Palmer and Matts Ingman to produce two designs, the larger of which we will look at today.
This small townhouse is located on an alley near the center of the Danish port town of Holbæk. It was built in 1894 and has been modernized since then. With only 49 m2 (527 ft2) over two levels to work with, the owners have used a number of tricks to get maximum utility from the small floor plan.
The front door opens into a narrow stair hall. The hall proceeds straight ahead to the kitchen, but it is such a tight squeeze past the stairs that it hardly qualifies as a hallway. Possibly the stairs were updated to meet current building standards at some point, with the original stairs being narrower than the current ones. With that being the case, the hallway seems to be used mostly as a storage space with the main circulation path to the kitchen cutting to the left through the living and dining rooms.
Today we have a small vacation house located in the south of Sweden. Working within a tight budget, architects DinellJohansson came up with a plan inspired by the luxurious villas designed by Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio for the Venetian nobility. The architects say that it shares with Palladio’s villas the “idea of summer life as an utterly joyful experience”.
Last year we featured the Længehus, a modular holiday house from Denmark. That was one of our most popular early articles, and so we thought we’d take a quick look a different model from manufacturer Møn Huset. This small vacation cottage sits in the forest near Tisvildeleje, a former fishing village just an hour’s drive north of Copenhagen. The floor plan isn’t shown on the Møn Huset website but it seems to be a variant of their Vinkelhuset line or it may have been a custom design. At any rate, the exterior of the house has the same clean lines, gabled roof form and simple attractive detailing as the rest of Møn Huset’s offerings.
This small cabin is nestled at the top of Vardehaugen, a large rock outcrop overlooking a fjord in central Norway. The cabin has an angular jagged form that nicely complements its rugged setting. Its location 35 m above sea level gives it panoramic views of the surrounding landscape but also exposes it to the harsh coastal weather.
Earthly concerns weighing you down? What better way to escape than by taking off in your very own space ship?
This UFO is one of the unique tree houses at Treehotel in Harads, Sweden. Two weeks ago we had a look at the Bird’s Nest tree house. The Bird’s Nest was designed to blend harmoniously into its forest setting. While that was being developed, the opposite idea came up, a tree house that was completely alien to its surroundings. Well, you can’t get much more alien than a UFO, can you?
Treehotel is a hotel of five tree houses in the boreal forests of northern Sweden. Each tree house is unique, offering guests an original tree-top environment in which to relax in harmony with nature. They all offer closeup views of the forest and more distant views of the nearby Lule River. We’ll have a look at several of the Treehotel tree houses over the coming weeks.
The Bird’s Nest tree house is designed to blend into the forest. Its camouflage covering allows discrete views of the surrounding nature from its hidden windows. Entry to the Bird’s Nest is via a retractable staircase which is activated by a button on a tree.
photo courtesy of Huus og Heim
This small forest home in Norway was designed by Huus og Heim Arkitektur. The client asked that the house be designed to preserve and respect the natural character of the site. It mixes the clean lines of modern design with a traditional timber frame and extensive use of wood as requested by the client.
