Tham & Videgård Arkitekter, AB

House on a Hill

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

House on a Hill

Tham & Videgård Arkitekter

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård

MANUFACTURERS
Focus, Sky-Frame

PROGRAM
Private house

AREA
537 m²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Värmdö, Sweden

CATEGORY
Houses

English description provided by architects.

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

Only a twenty minutes drive from the city center, this house is built on a site that exemplifies the close access to untouched nature not far outside central Stockholm.

In this case, a large piece of land reaches from the waterline, where a boathouse sits on the water, up through a steep forested slope to an open plateau at the top of the hill where the main house is located.

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

The access road rises along a steep cliff from the landside which means that the house is approached from below and that the extraordinary position of the house with wide views out over the archipelago landscape can only be fully understood once arrived at the main level.

The clients, a very active family that share their time between city and nature, wanted a house for both quiet seclusion and entertaining with friends with a very direct relation to the landscape.

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

We envisioned the house as reduced to a pure structure where indoor and outdoor spaces mix and let the emphasis remain on the scenery outside.

A vertical figure, freestanding like a lighthouse or a large-scale sundial, and entirely cast in concrete firmly anchored on the exposed bedrock.

The program is organized in a three-level section: 

entrance and services on the souterrain level, social spaces on the mid and main terrace level, and private family rooms at the top.

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

The façade structure makes no distinction between these levels and, through its 45° rotation between each floor, creates a certain labyrinthine effect where the landscape outside becomes a point of reference also for movement inside the house.

Around the perimeter, the folded layout results in a series of wind-shielded terraces that follow the movement of the sun.

House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

From a distance, the origami-like pleated and rotated volume offers alternative readings of mass and void, which lends the building a simultaneously solid and transparent quality.


House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman
House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman


House on a Hill
Section 01
House on a Hill
Section 02


House on a Hill
Plan - Ground floor
House on a Hill
Plan - 1st floor
House on a Hill
Plan - 2nd floor
House on a Hill
Plan - Site


House on a Hill
© Åke E:son Lindman

Tham & Videgård Arkitekter, AB
T +46 8 7020046
Tham & Videgård Arkitekter, AB
Blekingegatan 42, 116 62 Stockholm, Sweden