Mountain Cottage

Sollia, Stor-Elvdal, Norway

Architects: Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk

Any: 2004

The cottage is situated 900 metres above sea level in a west facing hillside with a striking view towards the Rondane mountains. The site is lying on the back side of a vague elevation in the sloping landscape, which makes the ground slant “backwards”, away from the view. The elevation makes a beautiful foreground with a few pine trees and the ground covered with reindeer moss.

The main volume of the cottage embraces the elevation, with the rooms organised along the view. A gravel terrace adapts to the increasing terrain and creates a sheltered outdoor space facing west and the view. On the east side is a two storey annex for toilet and drying. The annex is connected to the main building by an entrance porch.

The ground of soil and gravel was dangerous for frost heave, and the frost depth in the area was 2.7 metres. A traditional foundation layout would to a great extent have ruined the vegetation around the building. An important aim was therefore to find a foundation principle that occupied a smaller area of the ground:

- A concrete sustaining wall holds the gravel between the house and the terrain. This wall also anchors the wooden structure that cantilevers above the ground to the east. In this way the ground insulation carpet is more or less limited to the size of the building itself, while on the west side the insulation is covered by the gravel terrace.

The cottage has a post and beam skeleton of laminated pine wood. The upper beams has a 1:60 tilt that makes a noticeable sloping ceiling in the spaces inside. The structure is exposed in the interiors and towards the terrace. The cantilevered part of the building has a covering of pine heartwood boards.

The interior siding and fittings are pine plywood. The structure of the plywood ceiling generated a geometric pattern of rectangles, painted in 19 different colours. The wooden floors are pine, while the passage area along the terrace is ground concrete. The fireplace and other masonry is concrete brickwork. All exterior wood is treated with tar.