Photography by Johan Dehlin.
At first glance, Saltviga House looks like a minimalist, shingled vacation home perched atop a rocky bluff on Norway’s southern coast—but the exterior cladding, and the interiors, too, are so much more complex than it seems.
Each piece of wood, inside and out, is actually leftover German oak from Dinesen‘s flooring factory.
And while they ended up spending more on labor to transform discarded wood into evenly sized pieces for the facade, they still came out on top with a one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly house that’s in harmony with its rugged surrounds.
Kolman Boye Architects didn’t want to disrupt the rough, wild landscape, so they made sure the structure would blend in with the boreal forest.
The oak exterior will continue to silver and weather over time, helping it to further fade into the environment.
In order to avoid altering the terrain, the home adheres to the organic slope of the ground and steps down with it to create five levels.
The structure is split into two volumes. One is for socializing, with a kitchen, dining area, and living room.
A small section with its own pitched roof connects the two volumes. It features sliding doors on both sides that can be manipulated to ventilate the interior and the back deck (which is intentionally protected from the coastal wind).
Unlike typical shingles, the wood flooring leftovers are sawn, which exposes much more of the grain.
Nobody can really answer that question because it’s not a common way of doing these things.”
Either way, covering the exterior in over 12,000 individual oak scraps from Dinesen’s floor production was a worthwhile and low-waste—though laborious—endeavor.
Inside, Kolman Boye Architects took a straightforward approach.
The Douglas fir flooring appears on the interior walls and ceilings, as well as on the kitchen cabinets and backsplash, for a distinctly Scandinavian aesthetic.
Ironically, there isn’t actually wood flooring on the floors.
The stair treads, risers, and railing are, however, made of Douglas fir.
The windows intentionally capture the horizon.