Trätoppen

Anders Berensson Architects was commissioned by the Stockholm Center Party to design a skyscraper to replace an old car park in the city center of Stockholm. The result became a slender wood scraper "Trätoppen" (the tree top) that stands inside the car park leaving the existing car parks facade intact.

If  we want to reduce the amount of cars in the city center of Stockholm and at the same time make space for more housing without building on green areas, then replacing car parks with housing, shops and restaurants feels obvious. If the car park is as central located as the one on Regeringsgatan 47 it also make sense to build a high building that can fit a lot of people, shops and restaurants.

The existing car park, “Parkaden”, is perhaps Sweden's most famous one designed by Hans Asplund. The most characteristic feature of the house is a pattern with numbers on the facade which shows what floor you are on. Another thing that distinguishes this car park is the early use of a system of sloped floors. Retaining the sloping floor is hard due to the buildings low ceiling height, however it is possible to maintain the facade if the new building don’t use the whole footprint of the existing car park.

Picture from an apartment 

The skyscraper is retracted six meters from the existing car parks facade in order not to interfere too much with the expression of the car park . The Skyscraper is considerably smaller in foot print than the car park which enables space for a large public terrace on the seventh floor. The retraction also makes it possible to use the existing building at the lower floors after an extensive reconstruction.

The new building will be 40 stories high and built out of cross laminated timber “CLT”. In the 33 floors that protrude above the existing car park 31 floors will be residential and 2 floors will be public terraces. The seven floors inside the existing car park is best suited for shopping and restaurants due to the depth of the house. The CLT facade of the new skyscraper is a continuation of the pattern with numbers that Hans Asplund designed. From the outside, one can count the floors by reading the facade and from the inside you will be reminded what floor you are on just like in the parking garage. This is a useful feature given that the skyscraper will be the highest in the city center of Stockholm. The facade also has some practical benefits and acts like a sun screen, which keeps the building cool and energy efficient.

Picture to the left: The building seen from Hamngatan. Picture to the right: The building seen from the intersection between Regeringsgatan and Mäster Samuelsgatan

Facts:

Height: 133 m

Width: 35 m

Depth: 18 m

Number of floors: 40

Number of floors above the existing car park: 33

Number of apartments per floor: 8 pcs. A 50 m2

Total number of apartments: 250

Area per floor in the new building: 630m2

Floor programing:

Floor 40: Audience terrace

Floor 8-39: Apartments

Friend 7: Public terrace

Floor 0-6: Shopping & Restaurants

Shadow diagram 

Paper fold model

Trätoppen Sketch

Winter Cabin Summer Palace

Anders Berensson Architects has design the renovation and refurnishing of a small winter cabin in The Royal National City Park  Norra Djurgården in central Stockholm. The commission was to ad as little as possible to transform the cottage into a functioning house to live and work in without having to plug in water or sewer. Today the cabin is completely empty of furniture and basic functions such as toilet, storage, places to rest and cooking facilities on top of that the house lacks daylight and is poorly heated. The new design features all of these necessities plus much more. The client who is a true outdoor person also asked for a grand outdoor space which he could use during summer time. Therefore the concept behind the design has been that all you can do in the winter inside the cabin you can also do outside at summer time. At summer the house grows from cabin to an outdoor palace where the client can spend most of his day in the beautiful national park.

Rendering of front veranda

The outdoor veranda surrounds the whole building and contains functions such as a kitchen, small green houses, seating areas, a grill, water collector and a hen house. The veranda also cover parts of the roof where the client can catch the morning sun and grow spices and herbs on the south side, on the north side is apartments for birds and bats.

Front perspective 

Floor plans

Sections

Axonometric sketch

Bridges Beaches & Bars

A long beach between Stadshusbron Bridge and Klarabergsviadukten bridge partly under the Klarastrandsleden bridge.

Anders Berensson Architects was commissioned by the Stockholm Center party to visualize how the areas under the bridges in Stockholm would look if they were activated with bars, beaches, pop up houses, food trucks etc. Given the similarity to some of our office previous work we are very proud to visualize these political proposals and hopefully help them a bit further towards getting realized.

Opera plus more under the Tranebergsbron bridge. 

If you like this project you might also like these proposals previously designed by the office: “Under the bridge” and “Stockholm Water Fire Light”.

85% says build it!

During the last month our project Klarastaden has gone viral and has been featured in webpages, magazines and tabloids like Techinsider, Citylab, Dezeen, Inhabitat, SVT (Swedish State Television), The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Clarion, Metro, Architectural Digest to just mention a few. One of the news that made us extra happy and surprised is a local voting at the webpage lajkat.aftonbladet.se. 85% of more than 5000 voters says build it! We are uttermost proud to be crowd pleasers!

Fold-Out Sauna

Anders Berensson Architects has designed a shed that can fold out to become a sauna when needed. The sauna is to be located in a small allotment garden area close to the city center of Stockholm. The local plan allow a complementary storage building of 3 square meter without needing to apply for a building permit. The client however wanted a sauna rather than a storage and asked us if it was possible to design a storage building that could transform into a bigger sauna when needed. The answer to this unusual request became this fold-out sauna. 

Video of Fold-Out Sauna transforming from storage to sauna

Section drawing of the buddings two modes 

Fold-Out Sauna when closed; A 3 square meter shed with racks for tools and with an outdoor bench on the back side.

Fold-Out Sauna when opened; The sauna is now 6 square meters. The racks has become three levels of seating with a view towards the canal from the top seat. The outdoor bench works as a support for the structure.

The office actually has a history of building hidden saunas. If you like this project you might also want look at our earlier project Secret Sauna.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2016!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 2015 was a great year for the office and it looks like it will continue 2016. Anders Berensson Architects has several fantastic ongoing projects, which will be unfolded and built during 2016. Some of next year’s projects are loaded on the trucks above or written in the stars, ready for you to enjoy next year!

World Record Ville Opening

As a co-founder and director of KTH's Full Scale Studio, Anders is proud to invite you to the studio's latest realized project. Welcome to the opening of Full Scale studio's 2015 fall semester project World Record Ville on Monday the 14th of December between 5-7 PM at the Full Scale Factory, Teknologgården, KTH Campus. This year you will be able to visit three amazing allotment cabins designed and built by KTH Students with the intention to break three different world records. The Smartest, Cheapest and Longest lasting house in the world.