Furillen

01/11

Furillen is a peninsula in northeastern Gotland that has never been inhabited, but with a long history of limestone mining and military activity. The project’s main challenge was the astounding beauty of the paradoxical landscape, where the topography is thoroughly shaped by human activity and indecipherable utility buildings form the only building tradition to relate to. Traditional residential buildings had seemed malplacé in this environment and lessened the experience.

Our response was to continue in the same spirit as the existing buildings, with a one-track focus on function. But where the appearance of the old buildings in the limestone quarry are ruled by function in terms of the rational performance of a task, this is instead about experiential functions. Each house was developed as a assemblage of components such as bay windows, skylights and vaults, whose shape is completely determined by the spatial experience they intend to create.

The design language took inspiration from Bernd and Hilla Becher’s collections of industrial buildings and the ambition was to, through the focus on function, create a kind of family resemblance between the houses from the overlap of forms rather than similarity. They have all been clad in untreated Gotland core pine paneling, which further binds them together into a perceived wholeness. All windows and glass parts are frameless and sit in level with the facade.

Four of the houses were completed in autumn 2022 and one is still under development. Together they form a small family of anonymous sculptures under the pines.

Typology	Summer houses
Year	2023
Status	four of five completed, one in development

Client	Private
Team	Andreas Lyckefors, Johan Olsson, Fabian Sahlqvist, Viktor Stansvik, Joel Matsson, David Svahn, Viktor Fagrell, Oscar Forsman
Location	Gotland, sweden
Photography	Mikael Olsson