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.

Klarastaden

Anders Berensson Architects has designed a new city area in central Stockholm .The firm was commissioned by “Stockholm Centre Party” to make a dense and green city on top of the train track area next to Stockholm Central Station. Stockholm is growing and to accommodate population growth the city needs to build more houses. One of the most sustainable way of doing this is to densify the existing neighborhoods and take advantage of existing infrastructure. The train track area in the West part of Stockholm City is one of Stockholm's most central locations with a high attraction value. Given the cost of covering the existing train tracks and the area's central location, the new proposal aims to build a tight and high city area in order to make room for as many people as possible in central Stockholm.

In order to build denser the firm has designed a new type of city block for Stockholm. The proposed city blocks exist out of thin towers which can be varied in height to accommodate more people but also adapt to light conditions and views. The proposal is apartment buildings scaled down to its smallest component, one stairwell surrounded by apartments to get the smallest footprint possible. With these smaller volumes, the design can be more flexible and adapt to parameters such as views, sight lines and light conditions and still get more living space. The design also makes larger parts of the area accessible to the public since both courtyards and roof terraces is crossed by public paths. The sky walk on the roof terraces will be one of the longest parks in Stockholm with best view in town. The proposal also makes the waterfront accessible for people in Stockholm. To control views and light conditions for the new houses zoning regulations for building heights is a major part of the proposal. Every other row of houses is low, max 4 floors with a courtyard and every other row of houses is high 7 to 30 floors. About 90% of all apartments will receive a lake view and the sun will shine through the lower parts of the blocks to reach down to street level during the afternoon. The new city area will host about approximately 5800 apartments, 8000 work places and about 300 shops. 

The new city area will be the highest and densest in Stockholm. Because of the areas location the firm believes it is a suitable area for higher buildings given that in the present situation there is very few apartments next to the area that will be negatively affected from shading or blocked views. When the new area meets a residential district the building heights are lower. The highest part of the area is towards Stockholm Central Station where there are good communications and where many people want to live.  

Explanatory diagram showing the advantages of a new typology of blocks compared to the typical block structure used in Stockholm.

Swedish Text:

Stockholm växer och för att tillmötesgå befolkningstillväxten måste det byggas fler bostäder. Det mest hållbara sättet att göra detta på är att förtäta redan befintliga stadsdelar och dra nytta av redan existerande infrastruktur. Spårområdet i Västra City är ett av Stockholms mest centrala lägen med ett högt attraktionsvärde. Med tanke på kostnaden för överdäckningen och områdets centrala läge precis intill Stockholm Centralstation bör det nya området byggas så tätt och högt som möjligt för att kunna göra plats för så många personer som möjligt centralt i Stockholm. De tidigare förslagen för området följer Stockholms kvarterstruktur och kopplar på ett självklart sätt an till befintliga gator och leder dessa vidare ner till vattnet. Denna grundstruktur finns det ingen anledning att förändra. De föreslagna åtta våningsbyggnaderna i kvartersform har dock betydande brister i densitet, variation, ljus, sjöutsikt och tillgänglighet.Kvarterens långa horisontala utsträckning blir stora och slutna för allmänheten och dess höjd skuggar gatorna förutom under sommarmånaderna. Denna struktur går inte heller att göra högre då den redan är brutal i sin skala, även om den har formen av något igenkännbart i Stockholm. Skulle dessa hus bli högre skulle all sol försvinna i området.

En ny form av kvartersstad.

För att kunna bygga tätare behövs en annan typologi av hus. Därför föreslår vi en mindre och flexiblare typologi som kan varieras i höjd för att rymma fler människor men också anpassa sig till ljusförhållanden och utsikt. Vårt förslag går ut på att flerbostadshusen skalas ned till sin minsta beståndsdel -ett trapphus med lägenheter och hiss för att få en så liten horisontell utbredning som möjligt, det vill säga en variation på punkthuset men anpassat till en urban struktur. Med denna volym kan stadsbilden bli betydligt mer flexibel och anpassas till parametrar som utsikt, siktlinjer och ljusförhållanden och ändå få in mer bostadsyta samt tillgängligöra betydligt större delar av området för allmänheten då innergårdarna genomkorsas av publika stråk. Förutom att öppna upp innergårdarna föreslår vi också att alla hus bör förses med takterrasser som är gemensamma för de boende i huset alternativt är semioffentliga platser med restauranger och annan publik verksamhet. För att reglera utsikt och ljus skapas zoneringsregler i höjdled. Varannan husrad blir låg, 4 våningar med en park emellan sig och varannan husrad blir hög från 7 till 30 våningar. Ca 90 % av alla lägenheter får då sjöutsikt och solen kommer att silas genom de lägre delarna ner på gatunivå. Samtidigt kommer den byggda ytan i området öka. Generellt sett är Klarastaden en lämplig plats för inslag av högre bebyggelse med tanke på att det i dagsläget ligger få bostäder i direkt anslutning som kommer att påverkas sol- och utsiktsmässigt. Men där så finns, exempelvis i Atlasområdet, vill vi ha en omfattande boendedialog för att integrera ny bebyggelse på ett sätt som berikar existerande områden. Vi vill även dela upp varje kvarter på olika byggherrar för att öka variationen i området. Då öppnas möjligheter för en mer varierad stadsbild och fler typer av boendeformer.

Look Out Lodge

Anders Berensson Architects has designed a small extension to a summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. The project has a limited budget and we promised the client to design the cheapest and easiest extension possible with one reservation, that the firm would designed and build the windows instead of buying standard ones. The two new windows fixes what’s missing in the existing house, a work space, a quiet and bright place to read and a sky tower with a window on top to look at the stars at night. The house also features some advanced gingerbread carpentry at the sky tower. The ground breaking of the house has just started and the house should be finished next summer.

Plan with the existing house and the extension to the left

Section 

Facade drawing 

Detail of gingerbread carpentry

Full Scale Factory

Anders Berensson and Ebba Hallin has designed a factory for Full Scale Studios autumn term project World record ville at KTH Royal Institute of Technology Campus in Stockholm. The plant is designed to handle several parameters of both structural and pedagogical challenges. The purpose of the building is to be a factory for the production of three allotment cottages. The factory will provide rain and wind protection, but also create a clear limit to the construction area since the factory is located in one of the most central locations at KTH  “Teknologgården”. The factory will also make room for workbenches and storage of materials to keep things rolling while building World record ville. The factory will be at the campus from October to mid-December .

The factory covered  in late November

Structure

The plant is designed to cost as little as possible. The house has been constructed of ordinary construction timber and OSB sheets assembled to trusses. The roof framework is covered with a transparent tarpaulin. The form of the trusses is designed by several parameters. The length of each board should not be longer than standard measurements. The house's total perimeter in section should not be longer than 12 meters to suit the most affordable tarpaulin. The OSB sheets is cut to have as little waste as possible. 100% of each sheet is used to make the structure rigid.

Since the idea of the house is to be as large as possible with as little material as possible, the house becomes too light to stand by its own weight on the ground in windy conditions. We where also not allowed to harm the surface of the square. The storage of the house is therefore added to the building's corners to weigh down the house. If a storm comes, rain water barrels can be added to provide additional weight. Workbenches are placed on top of the storage space.

Pedagogy

Since the house is built by students, the building process of the factory is a crash course in common Swedish construction methods. Every moment in erecting the building is designed as a lesson in construction and how to use common hand tools. A critical part of the design was to keep 25 students occupied at the same time and make sure that each group of students had to go through all building methods and techniques to succeed with their assignment, techniques that are crucial to know for their forth coming projects.

Every cut is designed for various cutting tools such as circle saws, jig saws and hand saws. The house is also assembled with several different assembly methods such as nailing, screwing, half in half cuts and knots.

Putting together a symmetrical roof truss on the ground without anything in level and with no straight corners to relate to also requires several measurement methods and construction mathematics such as Pythagorean Theorem and diagonal measuring to succeed.

Culture

Since the studio largely consist of exchange students from all over the world, Swedish cakes and sweets where used as templates for curved jig saw cuts to share some Swedish cultures with our guests.