Living with Nature

A small remote island in the Gullkrona archipelago offers a panorama of changing seasons in the northern Baltic: late sunsets fill open skies and early sunrises dramatise rocky islands. In spring, constant birdsong greets the end of severe winter. Warm calm midsummer days are filled with scents of pine and juniper. Autumn storms drive huge waves over the rocks to freeze gradually, generating abstract formations of drifting ice. Finally, all is covered by snow. The villa is built to experience all this and counteract periods of urban hard work.

This cluster of buildings was designed for clients who had worked abroad for a couple of decades. The site affords a panorama of a seascape space lined by islands, turning behind a headland to form a bay. At Midsummer time, the sun rises from the sea and also sets into it.

Built on a rocky hillock, Villa Snow White is oriented to the south, towards the archipelago off Espoo. The old trees on the site determined the looking directions from indoor spaces. The surrounding buildings are mainly low-rise, varied in style and age. The nearest neighbours are houses with pitched, hipped or flat roofs and masoned or rendered facades; among them are also two low blocks of flats. The old house that occupied the site had reached the end of its life cycle and was demolished.

Villa Marga is located on the site of an old, ruined fisherman’s croft in the Ekenäs archipelago. The buildings and an old fruit garden are in the middle of the site, at its highest point. The ground descends about ten metres on the long way to a shoreline sauna and the sea. The villa has open views of the sea, which gain additional charm from the numerous animals that live in the nearby forest and visit the site.

The site is located on an inhabited island of natural beauty in the inner archipelago of Hitis. It has a view of the open sea and the Galtarna islands. The owners wished to have genuine experiences of the surrounding nature and the changes of weather and seasons, so they did not want to follow the insular tradition of seeking the most sheltered place for the building.

The site is in the immediate neighbourhood of the village of Iitti. It is a rocky tip of headland, where the family had spent their holidays during three generations. They decided to replace the existing summer cottage, built in the 1960s, with a new villa, which would serve as a place of relaxation and a generator of renewal and where they could meet relatives and friends. They also wanted to offer their foreign artist guests a unique experience amidst nature.