Today we go to one of my favorite places: Norway. Specifically we travel to Tromsø, in the north of the country, and here we come across this beautiful refuge located on a ridge that rises from the fjord and from which you can enjoy incredible views towards a forest.
It is a house that was conceived so that the owners could have enough space to receive their friends and family and, at the same time, not lose the privacy necessary for day to day. A cozy house with an incredible design in which you want to protect yourself from the cold of this area of northern Europe.
The distribution of the house
The house was designed by the Snorre Stinessen studio, which planned a main area and an annex separated by a covered central courtyard accessed through a sliding oak door. To respond to the cold climate of the area, the central courtyard functions as a winter garden, with a kitchen and a fireplace to combat low temperatures. From here, the house opens to the natural clearing of the forest and from here you can also access the main building or the annex.
The rooms
On the other hand, each group of rooms is distributed in separate blocks to achieve a greater degree of privacy and also to improve the connection of the interior with the exterior area. The main zone and the annex are formed by two boxes each. In the annex we find service rooms and a relaxation area with a sauna in one of the boxes, and the rooms and an activity room in the second. The sauna is only separated from the outside by a large frameless glass.
In the main part we come across the entrance, an area for children and a secondary living room (in the first box) and the bedroom and the main bathroom in the second. A few steps away is the open kitchen, with a living room overlooking the fjord. From this kitchen we went to the outdoor area, facing south.
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The materials
All boxes are made of wood with cedar panel cladding, both inside and outside, which was treated with iron sulphate and kept outdoors for months before assembly. The interior surfaces are mainly oak without knots to achieve a warmer contrast with the exterior.
The boxes are slightly raised compared to the intermediate spaces. The ceilings are made of oak slats that, through treatment with iron sulphate, naturally turn black due to the high content of tannin.
Furniture and decoration
Most of the furniture that we see in this house, for example, the table and bench in the dining room, the beds, the cabinets, the fireplace and the sliding door in the winter garden have been custom designed by Stinessen.
As for decoration, we have opted for carpets for the floor to give greater warmth to the rooms, with furniture and lamps with some very interesting designs. It is not a very ornate decoration, so it is possible to enhance the use of wood and thus highlight the furniture used.
