On a Swedish Lakeside, Four Cubes Add Up to One House

New York Times

29-04-2025

Patrik and Anna Johall searched for years to find an escape in nature, as a getaway from their primary home in Boras, Sweden.
'Even when we met and were very young, Patrik had a dream about having a house by the lake,' said Ms. Johall, now 50, the chief executive of Superstudio, a creative agency that Mr. Johall founded.
'We bid on a few houses over the past 20 years,' said Mr. Johall, 51, a photographer and a partner at Superstudio. But nothing worked out.
When they finally found the right property in 2018, it had the splendor they craved, but it wasn't much of a getaway: The waterfront lot on Lake Oresjo was little more than a mile from their house, which they shared with their two children.
'It feels very remote even though it's close to town,' Ms. Johall said. 'It's 10 minutes by car to get into the city center.'
The half-acre lot, which they bought for about $200,000, wasn't without its challenges. It rose steeply from the lake as a beautiful mess of boulders and trees; there was a small, primitive cabin in place that needed to be torn down; and the main access was via a narrow, private road.
The lack of a flat building site led some of the couple's acquaintances to doubt their choice. 'Everyone was telling us, 'Oh, you're such idiots. You're trying to build on that property? How will that work?'' Mr. Johall said. 'But we never doubted it.'
For help, they turned to the architecture firm Claesson Koivisto Rune and developed a concept for four separate structures scattered across the hillside rather than a single, larger house.
'The concept was almost like a rock crystal,' said Marten Claesson, a partner at Claesson Koivisto Rune, with perfect cubes emerging from the landscape.
The largest of the structures is a 700-square-foot cube containing the main living space and primary bedroom. Aiming to disturb the earth as little as possible, the architects placed it atop a single concrete column that descends into the rock. 'It's like a mushroom, almost,' Mr. Claesson said.
The house is rotated 45 degrees to angle out toward the lake, with an exterior split horizontally 'like an Equator line,' Mr. Claesson said. The bottom, where the living spaces are, is all glass; the top, where the walls wrap a rooftop terrace, is galvanized steel.
Inside, a smaller cube at the center of the structure is clad in dark-stained ash and holds private and functional elements, including a bathroom and storage cabinets. Rotated at 45 degrees to the rest of the house, it creates four separate spaces at the corners of the larger cube, which serve as the living room, dining room, kitchen and primary bedroom.
As a finishing touch, the Johalls selected knurled metal light switches and dimmers from Buster + Punch, which resemble toggle switches that could have been pulled from a custom guitar or vintage automobile.
'The house is so small that we put a lot of research into all the details, all the furniture,' since every piece would affect the overall feel of the space, Mr. Johall said.
Closer to the water, a 323-square-foot cube with a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom provides a living and sleeping space for the two children, now teenagers, or guests. At the water's edge, a 108-square-foot cube holds a sauna with a curved aspen wood bench and Nero Marquina marble tiles, as well as a laundry area. The fourth cube is close to the road and provides a carport.
Construction began in August 2020. 'It was supposed to take one year,' Mr. Johall said, 'but it took two years.' The project faced numerous delays from pandemic-related price spikes, adverse weather and complications getting materials to the building site.
'We weren't allowed to drive heavy trucks on the road during the winter,' explained Mr. Johall, which was a problem since most deliveries needed to come with a crane that could lower materials to the construction site.
The team ended up having helicopters make some of the final deliveries. 'That was such a good idea, and something we should have done much earlier,' Mr. Johall said.
As the project progressed, the construction cost ballooned to over $1.5 million — more than double what the couple had initially budgeted. But it was an investment they believe was worth it. As creative professionals, they were keen to realize the most ambitious architecture they could dream up with Claesson Koivisto Rune, without cutting corners. 'We tried to do everything in the best possible way,' he said.
The reward is a home the family enjoys so much that it's become their primary residence, even though it's half the size of their house in the Boras city center.
'You can't have art on the walls,' Mr. Johall said. 'But when you open the curtain in the morning, nature provides a new painting every day.'