Explore this island home with an intricate timber facade - Grand Designs Magazine

Explore this island home with an intricate timber facade

A beautifully-designed wood cladding helps this home blend into its picturesque island surroundings.

By Hugh Metcalf |

This self-build holiday home on a Norwegian island features an intriguingly detailed wood cladding to help integrate it into its surroundings.

a self build on an island with a intricate wooden facade - grand designs

Image: Ivar Kvaal

To create a holiday home that blended into its picturesque surroundings on the Norwegian island of Skåtøy, architects Atelier Oslo worked with Kebony to create this interesting and unusual cladding, which earned the top accolade in the Housing Exterior category of the Surface Design Awards 2020.

Though the rectangular building creates a striking, geometric form, varying widths and distances between the cladding’s rungs create an organic feel, almost as if replicating a microscopic view of wood fibres.

Overlaying the glass box building in irregular patterns, the cladding softens the overall shape, as well as affording privacy to the rooms that need it, without blocking out the light or view from inside these spaces.

Material magic

front of self build home with wood frame design - grand designs

 Image: Ivar Kvaal 

The outer cladding has been created with Kebony wood, using a patented process which enhances the properties of non-durable wood species to give them similar characteristics to the best performing woods. Creating a connection with the nearby trees on the island, the dark brown colour will also age and patina over years to come, taking on a greyer hue that will further integrate the building into this rustic environment.

This self-build holiday home on a Norwegian island features an intriguingly detailed wood cladding to help integrate it into its surroundings.

a self build on an island with a intricate wooden facade - grand designs

Image: Ivar Kvaal

To create a holiday home that blended into its picturesque surroundings on the Norwegian island of Skåtøy, architects Atelier Oslo worked with Kebony to create this interesting and unusual cladding, which earned the top accolade in the Housing Exterior category of the Surface Design Awards 2020.

Though the rectangular building creates a striking, geometric form, varying widths and distances between the cladding’s rungs create an organic feel, almost as if replicating a microscopic view of wood fibres.

Overlaying the glass box building in irregular patterns, the cladding softens the overall shape, as well as affording privacy to the rooms that need it, without blocking out the light or view from inside these spaces.

Material magic

front of self build home with wood frame design - grand designs

 Image: Ivar Kvaal 

The outer cladding has been created with Kebony wood, using a patented process which enhances the properties of non-durable wood species to give them similar characteristics to the best performing woods. Creating a connection with the nearby trees on the island, the dark brown colour will also age and patina over years to come, taking on a greyer hue that will further integrate the building into this rustic environment.

Image: Ivar Kvaal 

Concrete and wood

The house, which sits on a rocky outcrop, uses concrete as a building material to soften the contrast between the house and the landscape. It’s used throughout the house’s lower levels, while on the exterior, it’s been used to create steps for access that meet the natural stone directly.

The structure was designed to be ‘ruin-like’, comprising of an open-plan living space and kitchen with a fireplace and a small mezzanine level.

Set in stone

kebony norway self build Ivar Kvaal Main - grand designs

 Image: Ivar Kvaal 

Setting the house in a spot of lower ground reduces the visual impact of the lofty building. The varying ground level allows for areas with double height ceilings in some areas, and divided storeys in others, without affecting the simplified flat roof.

stairs leading from rocks to self-build timber home - grand designs

 Image: Ivar Kvaal 

Access from the higher plain is via external stairs, creating a striking vista against the rock and forest beyond.

 

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