Architects: Petra Gipp Arkitektur
Project: Concrete Spine House
Location: Älgö, Sweden
Architect in Charge: Petra Gipp
Area 150.0 sqm
Photography: Åke E:son Lindman
A narrow site high up on a precipice overlooks the inner Stockholm archipelago to the south. It meets a dense row of pine trees to the west and a softer grove of deciduous trees to the east. One enters the site from the north, where a generous staircase mediates the initial steep south-facing slope. The stairs follow a concrete wall that forms the spine of the structure, and lead the visitor downwards between the concrete wall on the one side and a wooden volume on the other. The staircase leaves the visitor at a gap in the concrete wall, providing a glimpse of the garden on the other side. The promenade continues along the closed wall, towards the view and the water, now flanked to the west by the row of pine trees. A second opening in the wall presents the entrance to the house and extends a passage through and across it, into the garden.
Inside the Spine house, the concrete wall winds its way further down the narrow site towards the water, and forms itself into bathrooms, storage space and a fireplace. Gathered around this concrete spine, wooden volumes hover just above the ground. They reach out into the garden, pushing the interior spaces into the cultivated landscape and creating exterior spaces protected from the wind. The interior space of each wooden room reaches upwards out through a skylight.
