The nature in and around the Norwegian island of Karmøy was the inspiration for a private home, designed by the Norwegian architect Tommie Wilhelmsen. Villa Melstokke blends with its surrounding fjord landscape and is indeed a Norwegian home inspired by nature.
Villa Melstokke is built as a V-shaped steel construction on a narrow plot of land filled with trees, grass and rocks. This allows the house to blend in almost effortlessly with its surroundings.
“During our first visit it was evident that the rocky surface was too small for a house if we wanted to maintain the rock formation that rises from the shoreline,” says Tommie Wilhelmsen and adds, “I therefore wanted a building that flowed around the stones. And, in order to hold this weight, a split base of a V shape made from steel was used and attached to the rocky outcrop.”
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Morning and evening sun
The plot of land has the morning sun on its eastern side and the evening sun on its west side. The kitchen is the heart of the home with one terrace for the easterly morning sun and another for the westerly evening sun. Both terraces have two angled walls which provide protection from the wind, regardless of whether it is coming from the north-west or south-west. This makes it possible to follow the sun all day long.
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Natural forces at play
This way, the interior really comes into its own on a stormy day, when you can watch the natural forces at play over the fjord directly from the windows.
The slimline, elegant Schüco sliding doors in the façade offer the perfect experience of nature and landscape in such an exposed location.
While the concrete base with integrated ground floor appears wedded to the rocky ground, the top floor timber construction floats like a viewing platform above it.
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Norwegian home inspired by nature
The holistic building design consistently breaks down the barriers between landscape and building both in the building envelope and the coordinated interior design.
Norwegian Home Inspired By Nature, based on text from the architect