Anders Berensson Architects

Anders Berensson Architects has been commissioned to design an extension to a villa north of Stockholm. The extension is quite big compared to the existing house and will almost double the existing villa from 250 to 400 square meter. To add a modern contrasting volume to the existing house which is the common way to go in Sweden would be disproportionately in this case so we decided to test an old strategy that is mostly used in strategic video and board games these days. Instead of adding a modern looking volume we decided to upgrade the house from villa to castle. Instead of balancing two big objects to each other we made them into one bigger unit by letting the new volume mirror the old one and then unify the two volumes by adding a tower where the two volumes meet.

When driving on this particular road one cannot help noticing the amount of houses with disproportionately extensions. The reason seems to be a combination of a generous local plan, real estate speculations and a lack of architects. The few houses that sticks out by being beautiful is two old ones that were built as castle from the start and some modern ones where they teared down the old house and built a new house from scratch. We chose to follow the two good-looking examples and designed a third castle on the street.

The east and south facade that faces the street follows the existing facade and creates a 1920th castle style. The west facade facing the garden follows the existing brick facade and is more modern with panoramic windows facing the beautiful forest on the back of the house. The tower part serves as a central staircase, entrance, kitchen and studio. Each floor is designed as a small flat giving the castle several opportunities on how to be used in the future.