Striving to create an environmentally-friendly, sustainable structure that conforms to the organic curves of nature, Swedish designer Torsten Ottesjö designed this gorgeous little home that looks like something right out of the pages of a fairy tale.
Images © Torsten Ottesjö
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The shape of the home is simple, yet complex at the same time. The double-curved surfaces make the house appear to change shape when viewed from different angles, both inside and out.
Torsten Ottesjö
The home is built out of a variety of woods, including ash, spruce and aspen – materials that were easy to bend to the curved shapes of the design.
Torsten Ottesjö
By using doubled-curved surfaces and complex forms, I wanted to adapt the house to Nature’s infinite variety of form. I wanted the house to be difficult to overlook, no matter what the angle or the shape. Whether we look at it from either the outside or the inside, a lot is still left open.
The entire structure sits on a steel frame anchored into the ground. The walls and roof consist of a layered, biodegradable material that is waterproof and windproof. The insulation is “ecofiber”, a recycled paper and salt blend commonly used in Sweden.
The minimalist interior consists of one room with an abundance of open space and built-in furniture. The wood surfaces are left primarily untreated, but pigmented white with linseed oil.
Torsten Ottesjö
I wanted to work with all surfaces of the room and create a room which in itself was comfortable. I wanted to create surfaces where you can sit and stand, lean against and lay on, giving you the ability to lean comfortably against the walls as if they were the back of an armchair. By optimizing the whole room, you liberate a lot of volume which in its turn makes a small room spacious. In my mind, a well-designed room does not need to be big or filled with furniture.