Homedemo

Living in Scandinavian Glass Houses

Tor Kjølberg

March 28, 2019

Modern Scandinavian houses have huge windows to let in the light. Some have hardly windows at all. Scandinavian experiments to enclose dwellings within greenhouses are bearing fruit in Scandinavia, both literally and in terms of sustainability.

You are noticing everything that happens when you live in a glass house where you and your body are aware of every minute of daylight. On an island In northern Norway, Aurora Borealis provides a backdrop to Benjamin and Ingrid Hjertefolger’s home under a domed glass shell. Certainly, it raises the stakes in a game of keeping up with the neighbors.

Related: Scandinavia Dreaming

Living in a Scandinavian Glass House — Marie Granmar and Charles Sacilotto, from France, bought a wooden house on an island in the Stockholm archipelago in 2002

Living in a glasshouse in Sweden
Charles Sacilotto, from France, bought a wooden house on an island in the Stockholm archipelago in 2002. His next step was to buy an $84,000 commercial greenhouse, used to grow tomatoes, and enclose his entire home in glass.

Sacilotto created what the late Swedish eco-architect Bengt Warne first designed and built in the 1970s: a naturhus (nature house), a home within a greenhouse with space to grow fruit and vegetables from warmer climates and no need for a mains sewage connection.

Bengt Warne was a very skilled architect and researcher who devoted his life to designing and erecting houses that would allow people to live in harmony with nature. His Water Lily House, the Nature House and many others, are all examples of his vision of an ecological way of living.

In 2010, research by Lester van Ree, of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, showed that a greenhouse residence is less likely to overheat than a super-insulated, airtight house and saves 25 per cent on winter heating bills.

Sacilotto’s house is a contemporary take on Warne’s idea, it affords the Sacilotto-Granmar clan a unique connection to their environment.

Living in a glasshouse in Denmark
In Bornholm, Denmark in an often dark and wintry climate, a team of Oxford University researchers tried to find out in its investigation into the health-benefits of daylight.

The 35 square-meter house is designed by the British company Cantifix which sees its potential in both futuristic housing and the tourist industry. The project involved 30 Danish volunteers, who take turns to live in the glass house.

“The most special thing about this house is that it does not matter if a bird is flying over, well then you are aware of it, you are noticing everything that happens. It is so quiet and completely silent, you just enjoy that you are all of a sudden in the middle of nature,” said one of the volunteers, Nana Rytter Nielsen.

The project also focuses on the effect of daylight on an array of diseases – from obesity, diabetes and stress to serious neurological illnesses like Parkinsons, Alzheimers, depression and schizophrenia.

“I’ve always wanted to live in a glass house. When I was a design and communication student in Copenhagen, I fell in love with the Farnsworth House”, says Kasper Egelund, whose dream came through with a home that blurs boundaries between indoor and out.

He and his wife Heidi have built a modern villa on the Danish seaside with front row to the Baltic sea. It is a two storey building that features floor-to-ceiling glazing, added to bring the surrounding nature within the walls of the family home.

“With this view, you’re in constant conversation with the outside,” says the couple.

Living in a glass house in Norway
Throughout the 20th century, architects promoted the glasshouse as a symbol of mental liberation. Around the time of World War I, German expressionist architects wrote ardent manifestos about glass structures that would contribute to the moral health of future society. Later architects with links to the so-called international style insisted that homes with glass walls enhanced the occupants’ experience of the natural environment and their awareness of the need to contemplate nature.

The Steigen archipelago in northern Norway is almost as remote as it gets in Europe, lying 62 miles inside the Arctic Circle. Among other dramatic features, it is home to the continent’s largest colony of sea eagles. The base there is the tiny island of Manshausen, where a resort and activity center has been created by polar explorer Børge Ousland – the first person to reach the North Pole in a solo and unsupported expedition – as a place for exploring “the harmony between people and nature”.

Out in the archipelago of Steigen, polar explorer Børge Ousland bought his own island, Mannshausen, where he commissioned some unique cabins, just the way he wanted them. These stylish cabins are inspired by a lifelong interest in architecture and some of Norway’s other innovative new buildings.

In 1964 PAM Mellbye’s described the famous Norwegian architect Geir Grung’s glass house in Jongskollen outside Oslo, “The boundary between inside and out, between cold and warmth, between technology and nature, has vanished … Liberated of something, but somewhat febrile, one continues floating in the glass room beneath the night sky, overcome by drama and a bold yearning to confront a howling storm that one could laugh at.”

Feature image (on top): Glass house for yoga practioners in Norway

Living in Scandinavian Glass Houses, compiled by Tor Kjolberg

The Taste of Scandinavian Chicken

Tor Kjølberg

March 25, 2019

The chicken’s route from being a springtime delicacy to junk food has been fast in Scandinavia. In just 30 years, chickens have become too cheap and too off-puttingly insipid to be considered good food. The chicken cookery traditions in Scandinavia make this an even bigger problem. However, there’s a new wave to enhance the taste of Scandinavian chicken.

The northern recipes rely solely on tasty and succulent poultry, with mellow spicing that cannot, and should not, make up for lousy modern quality.

Related: Scandinavian Goose and Duck

Fortunately, there is a growing number of Scandinavians willing to pay for the luxury of eating a chicken bred in the traditional manner, and the reward is a bird that can be cooked simply and delicately and given to children and young people who have never had anything so inviting and delicious to eat.

The Taste of Scandinavian Chicken
Old people, who had believed that their taste buds had tired, discover the taste of food they have not enjoyed for decades.

Chicken-keeping on a small scale has long been popular among Scandinavians, and as in other countries the passion for home chicken-keeping, including in towns and cities, is currently on the increase. This is in part a reaction to the trend for the mass-production of poor-quality chickens with next to no taste, and certainly no quality of life.

Related: Eggs & Dairy in Scandinavia

Habitat and appearance
Chickens were first introduced to Scandinavia during the Bronze Age. These were sturdy little birds, very much like the wildfowl originating in Asia. They evolved in time into what are now called landrace chickens, beautiful birds that easily withstand temperatures of -40 Celcius, and lay more than 200 eggs a year.

The plumage of landrace hen is mottled brown, like that of a pheasant (perfect camouflage for hiding in woodland) while the cocks are brightly colored in brown, black and white. They are agile birds and fairly good flyers and will stay in tall trees overnight if you let them.

Landrace chicken can still be found all over Scandinavia, where they are loved for their beauty, hardiness and friendly nature. On smallholdings they are often left to roam freely, and find most of their food themselves. They are also popular among home chicken keepers, even in cities. The eggs are small, but the yolk is as large as that of a big hen’s egg, and they are delicious.

Related: Scandinavian Cooking

In the past 200 years, the original landrace chicken has been interbred with hundreds of other breeds (many of them British ones) to improve meatiness, size, egg size, egg-laying capacity and fast growth. It is part of man’s nature to keep developing and improving both animals and plants, and it has had beautiful consequences in many ways.

With chicken breeding, however, it has just gone too far. Chickens now grow so fast that their legs cannot carry them. Egg-layers are so effective, laying an egg every single day, that they are little more than skeletons when slaughtered, and not worth eating.

There is, however, a fast-growing counter-offensive of conscientious chicken farmers who are producing fine, large, slow-grown organic chickens, though at a much higher price. Fortunately there are more and more of us prepared to pay for the luxury of eating a bird that goes a long way, and which has all the taste you rightly expect from a chicken.

Buying and storing
It is simple. If you want to succeed with northern recipes, you must invest in prime-quality, large, organic chickens that have been raised slowly. Anything else will be a disappointment. If you rib it with a little salt inside and out, a fresh chicken can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days.

Culinary uses
Scandinavian recipes for chicken are relatively few – chicken has been a luxury for centuries, a spring treat you did not want to take chances with – but they are certainly delicious. Furthermore, there is a solid logic to the way Scandinavian chicken recipes have evolved.

Soups were made from old and worn egg-layers, fattened to make beautiful broth, while spring chickens were filled with parsley and roasted slowly in butter and served with delicious curdled sauce, fresh peas, cucumber salad and new potatoes.

Leftovers were used for stews, salads and the Scandinavian beloved chicken tartlets (tarteletter). White asparagus is a classic feature of some of the Scandinavian favorite chicken dishes, as are the creamy flavorings of parsley and tarragon.

The Taste of Scandinavian Chicken, written by Tor Kjolberg