Monica Forster makes architectural debut with "deconstructed" summer house in the Stockholm archipelago

[Celerity]

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/02/27/berghem-summer-house-monica-forster/







Designer Monica Förster has created Berghem, a holiday home designed to blend into its rocky surroundings in the Stockholm archipelago, as her first-ever architecture project. Förster designed the summer house for her own family on Torö, an island close to Stockholm. Berghem comprises two buildings, one of which occupies the structural shell of an existing house on the plot.







The designer decided to use the structure of the existing house, which was painted in a traditional Falu red, as it was hard to transport materials to the site. The home sits on a hill some distance from the road. "The landscape is rugged, with rocky terrain, twisted pines and ferns that define the area," Förster told Dezeen. "It reminded me of the nature in Lapland, where I grew up. The plot consists mostly of a rocky hill, located only 15 metres from the water."







In a nod to the rough landscape, she clad Berghem in Organowood – a type of wood infused with silicone that turns a lighter grey with time. "We chose this technique because we wanted the house to feel as though it were almost part of the mountain," Förster explained. She also considered the surroundings when designing the 85-square-metre home, which is divided into different sections, with one building sitting significantly lower than the other. "The deconstructed house at Berghem is divided into three sections, allowing the house to rise with the slope of the hill and offer a 380-degree view of the Stockholm archipelago," Förster said.





The lower of the two buildings was constructed using the structure of the existing house and holds two bedrooms and a bathroom, while the building created entirely from scratch houses the living room and kitchen. By placing the new building above the existing house, Förster gave the site more protection from the wind. This also created a sheltered third space between the two buildings, which is shaded by a pergola and where the family likes to hang out. "It's a very windy location that is quite exposed to the elements, so it's good to have different spaces to move between," Förster said. This indoor-outdoor living solution also means that the family spends more time outdoors. "It's nice that you have to go outside to move between the different houses depending on the time of day," Förster added.

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[dutch777]

1. Beautiful site. Stockholm is an interesting city/region. Best city we toured in the Baltic. Wonder how warm that...

...house is though? Lots of glass, windswept location and only one wood stove in one part of the house. Hardy Scandinavians I guess if used in the winter.

[Celerity]

2. A sommarstuga/fritidshus is generally not a year-round dwelling. We rarely use ours (it's outside Sigtuna) in the winter