Office and Conservatory on Valberget

Our goal was to avoid both nostalgia and a simplifying traditional-modern dualism.

Instead, we employed an assembly of playful interventions to create a generous and functional working environment inside the existing narrow wooden structure. A new glass core was inserted into a chimney shaft, creating an object with many uses: ventilation shaft, light well, furniture and room divider.

In the loft, the tangled space where the roof meets the floor was used as a workspace, for storage and for infrastructure.

Equipment used during construction was transformed into flexible furniture. Such as shelves made from scaffolding, tables from pallets, and new columns from piston rods. A concrete platform was cast into the existing rock to create an intimate meeting place in the cellar.

On the ground floor the existing door mouldings and wallpaper were refurbished and reinterpreted. The central space was left clear, giving one a new, kaleidoscope-like perspective into the four quadrants of the plan.

The revisited pavilion was to become a conference space. To reach this goal the main challenges were to achieve optimum functionality within the minor footprint and to satisfy two provisions of the preservation requirements.

The concept focused on highlighting the features of the surrounding site, such as the treetops and plants in the adjacent garden and park, the protected natural stone walls, and the view.

An airy, glass-supported construction renders the entire pavilion transparent. Coloured glass girders and glass walls support a glazed ceiling. Strict preservation requirements saw that the stone wall was to be rebuilt, although this would effectively obstruct direct access onto the site and views towards the park. The solution was to construct hinges in the stone walls to open the facade towards the park and the garden through the means of folding and sliding glass walls.