Boxhome, Oslo Home, Norway Building, Norwegian House Design, Property, Image

Boxhome Oslo, Norway

Oslo Residence: Norwegian House – design by Rintala Eggertsson Architects

26 Feb 2009

Boxhome

Dae built: 2007

Design: Rintala Eggertsson Architects

Boxhome Oslo

In the North all buildings for living have to be made in an advanced way due to the ever-contrasting weather. Additionally, the houses have to be properly heated with external energy more than half of the year’s course.

Therefore producing smaller homes would bring about a considerable economical and ecological benefit. Today the construction activity stands alone for more than one third of total global energy and material consumption, well exceeding that of all traffic and transport.

Boxhome Oslo, Norway by Rintala Eggertsson Architects

This should be a crucial question especially in Scandinavia, where people, in accordance with their growing wealth, possess larger and larger houses. And in most cases, this in addition to a second home called a summer house or a cottage.

Boxhome Oslo building
photograph : Ivan Brodey

Boxhome is a 19 square meter dwelling with four rooms covering the basic living functions: kitchen with dining, bathroom, living room and bedroom.

Firstly, the project focuses in the quality of space, material and natural light, and tries to reduce unnecessary floor area. The result is a dwelling where the price is only 1/4 of the price of any same size apartment in the same area. Boxhome is a prototype building, yet the same attitude could be taken further to bigger family housing and consequently to work places.

Boxhome, Oslo Home, Norway building
photo : Ivan Brodey

Secondly, it seems that we have given the right to produce our homes to uncontrollable groups of actors who seek mostly maximum income. The basic need to have one’s family protected has become a great business adventure. Making a simple house, after all, is perhaps not such a difficult task that it should be totally left for this kind of forces. Moreover, meeting the official construction restrictions and laws usually seems to equal to the using of the building industry products and services, thus limiting the possibilities of a real change and development into minimum.

Boxhome Oslo, Norway elevation

Thirdly, in Western societies at the moment we are enjoying the highest standard of living ever know to human kind. At the same time we are fully informed of the results of our culture of consumerism. Therein lays the greatest paradox: We are forced to actively forget the real reality to be able to enjoy the facade of excess we have created around us.

Finally, and most importantly, the goal has been to make a peaceful small home, a kind of urban cave, where a person can withdraw to, and whenever wished, forget the intensity of the surrounding city for awhile.

Boxhome Oslo plan layouts

Boxhome, Oslo – Building Information

Client: Galleri ROM, Maridalsveien 3, Oslo, Norway
Curator: Henrik de Menassian

Work group: Sami Rintala, architect Oslo
Dagur Eggertson, architect Oslo
John Roger Holte, artist Oslo
Julian Fors, architect student Vienna

Materials:
pine: structures
cypress: interior walls and floors
birch: kitchen
spruce: bathroom
red oak: living room
nut: bedroom
aluminium: facades

Size: exterior 5500 cm (length) x 5700 cm (height) x 2300 cm (width)
Floor area: 19sqm
Planning and building time: Aug 2007 – Oct 2007

Boxhome Oslo images / information from Rintala Eggertsson Architects

Rintala Eggertsson Architects

Location: Maridalsveien 3, Oslo, Norway

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