Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2017!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2017! 2016 was a great year for the office and it looks like it will continue in 2017. We got several fantastic projects on the drawing board all ready. Some of this year’s project as well as next years are hanging in the Christmas tree, If you click on the image you can have a closer glimpse of some of them.

Planterials

Anders Berensson is proud to present the latest research from Full Scale Studio, Planterials. New building materials that do not pollute our planet invented from renewable living organisms such as Wood, Shells, Clay, Ash, Mycelium, Cork, Bark, Reed, Straw, Moss, Papper ......  Do not miss the opening Tuesday December 13 at the KTH School of Architecture entrance 16:00-19:00

Log Lego Park

Anders Berensson Architects has been commissioned by AMF Fastigheter to design a small, affordable easy to build pocket park in Södermalm Stockholm. The park should be built just weeks after getting the commission so the concept for the park became to design a rapid and robust building system that could host the most common park elements such as seating, tables, trees and bike racks. Due to limited time the office investigated different of the shelves products to build the park from. The products selected for this project became standard square profile studs "Sparre" in different sizes. The building system became a lego of these studs placed in straight angles to each other making a super simple structure to build that is both cheap, robust and smart enough to host typical park functions. By making every layer of studs protrude over the next the structure is really easy to add components too such as bicycle parking, benches and tables. The big voids inside the stacks serves as foundations for ten cherry trees. All cherry trees are equipped with a string of light bulbs giving light to the park during night hours.

Park in May 

Birdhouses

The park in August 

Bike rack 

Lunch tables 

The park in November 

assembly drawing 

Section

Plan

B-Sides

We like to do projects that raises questions often found in the specific need of a client, site, situation or global issues that needs an architectural answer. The questions and how we answer them becomes the backbone of our architecture and the given stories when we present our projects. Although we often deal with multiple questions and answers we try to boil down our process into one narrative that explain the overall design concept. We take pride in being straight to the point and clear about why and how we do our architecture, not only for the sake of presentation but because we know it helps us develop our project further when we know the logic and aim of what we are designing. Although we like this way of communicating, the reduction of narratives do have its downsides. It often exclude fun detours, thrown away sketches, discussions, excursions, episodes, sly tricks, processes or ironic turns and background stories. Things that sometimes from an architects perspective can be even more interesting to hear about than the actual finished project story. These detours and side stories are hard to showcase and would just be confusing to include in our presentation of a new project. However they can be fun to read about in another forum. Therefore we added the feature B-Sides. The home of the less developed outcast cousins to the well-produced good prospect A-Sides. You will find this extra material at the end of some of our new published projects and future ones. As a premiere don't miss the B-Side of "Eldklot" a bonus track named "Erectus Grande"  one of our best detours so far that transformed into its own parallel project, a project that frightened and gave hope to the citizens of a midsize Swedish town.  

Eldklot

Anders Berensson Architects has designed a proposal for a new water reservoir outside the Swedish city of Örebro. The competition brief asked for a design to shape the new water reservoir into a grand monument that could continue the tradition of the former water tower “Svampen” known locally for its unique shape and viewing deck. We wanted to create a new landmark just like “Svampen”. A landmark that is not only for show.  We want to create a landmark shaped from a function of serving the city with necessities. Water is an important prerequisite for society to function but by building a low “hidden” reservoir it is hard to display. So we decided to add an equally important prerequisite; energy. We proposed that the new water reservoir would not only collect water but also provide the city of Örebro with solar energy. The proposed building is a sphere covered with a reflecting surface of solar panels facing south generating energy for the city. Towards north the sphere opens itself to the public with an illuminated inside of LED lights gleaming like a ball of fire ( Eldklot in Swedish) towards the city of Örebro in the evening. The new landmark will be visible from afar and look different depending on what angle and time of the day you’ll see it from. The sphere holds great opportunities to host various festivals and events. We hoped that by being a generous public building with a timeless shape dressed with environmentally friendly technology it could become a new modern symbol for the city of Örebro to enjoy.

Back in Full Scale

After a parental leave from my duties at KTH School of Architecture I am glad to be back running KTH's Full Scale Studio alongside Anders Berensson Architects . I will try to keep you posted of some future events that the studio is undertaking. Meanwhile you can always visit the studio home page or get a sneak peak of our recent adventures below.

Material harvesting
This year the studio try to keep a low budget and a low carbon footprint by tearing down old houses and reuse its timber instead of buying new timber from the wood-shop.

Tearing down and old summer house outside Stockholm

Proud to be almost done

Mission completed 

Lots of new timber to be reused for new Studio projects

Tri-Shed

This year we go mobile by building a movable tool-shed that is one bigger unit at School and divided into three smaller parts when out on the town doing projects.

Building the Tri-Shed

Tri-Shed Drawing and material list

Drawing of cuts

Elevations

Tri-Shed Section

Tri-Shed inside KTH School of Architecture

Power Tower

Anders Berensson Architects has been commissioned by the Kungl Djurgårdens förvaltning ( Swedish Royal Court ) to investigate the future of twelve big power towers. The towers is no longer in use and stands in the urban national park Norra Djurgården in central Stockholm. ABA proposes to transform one or two of them into picnic towers with a magnificent view over the park and the city of Stockholm. 

The towers are constructed to carry heavy power lines over the tree tops in the park making them strong enough to hold platforms and high enough to give a great view. The added stairs and platforms are made in wood to reduce weight and to contrast to the old structure. The towers are designed with a kiosk in the lower levels that can sell snacks and beverages for the picnic and also open and close the towers for the public at summertime. 

Principal drawing of attaching the new structure 

View from the towers

Map of the park and towers

Tower in day time and night time

Apple Headquarter

This summer Anders Berensson Architects has designed and built the headquarter for a very special and loved little client in a garden at Limhamn, Sweden. The headquarter is shaped like an apple since it is placed on top of an old dead apple tree. The interior of this stake out is a bench, some thin plywood shelves for books and a periscope hidden inside a rotating apple twig to spy on the surrounding villa gardens. The structure is built out of two big plywood sheets that has been jigsawed into an interlocking apple shape and then clad with poly-carbonate sheets creating a transparent and super strong headquarter.

The playhouse in action

Interior of the Apple headquarter

Sketch of the headquarter

1 to 1 drawing on plywood sheet

Double construction start

The office is proud to reveal a double construction start this week. In the north Archipelago of Stockholm Look Out Lodge is being built and plinths, construction wood and the sky tower is already up. In central Stockholm a new park made out of stacked wood that was designed just weeks ago are being built and will be finished in the very near future. We look forward to two great new built projects this summer.

Park made out of stacked wood with Tokyo cherry trees in them is under construction.

Sky tower under construction for the Look Out Lodge

Slott Natt Och Dag

Perspective East and south facade

Anders Berensson Architects has been commissioned to design an extension to a villa north of Stockholm. The extension is quite big compared to the existing house and will almost double the existing villa from 250 to 400 Square meter. To add a modern contrasting volume to the existing house which is the common way to go in Sweden would be disproportionately in this case so we decided to test and old strategy that is mostly used in strategic video and board games these days. Instead of adding a modern looking volume we decided to upgrade the house from villa to castle. Instead of balancing two big objects to each other we made them into one bigger unit by letting the new volume mirroring the old one and then unify the two volumes by adding a tower where the two volumes meet.

Facade towards the road

Perspective from inside the tower

When driving on this particular road one cannot help noticing the amount of houses with disproportionately extensions. The reason seems to be a combination of a generous local plan, real estate speculations and a lack of architects. The few houses that sticks out by being beautiful is two old ones that were built as castle from the start and some modern ones where they teared down the old house and built a new house from scratch. We chose to follow the two good-looking examples and designed a third castle on the street.

The east and south facade that faces the street follows the existing facade and creates a 1920^th castle style. The west facade facing the garden follows the existing brick facade and is more modern with panoramic windows facing the beautiful forest on the back of the house. The tower part serves as a central staircase, entrance, kitchen and studio. Each floor is designed as a small flat given the castle several opportunities on how to be used in the future.

Perspective west facade

Floor plan ground level 

Floor plan level 1

Floor plan level 2

East facade 

South facade

West facade 

North facade

South facade