MORFEUS arkitekter were engaged by clients Astri and Henrik Botten Taubøll in 2017 to design a new home on their recently inherited property, Sørbyhaugen 24 in Oslo. The choice fell jointly on transforming and extending the original house from 1933, even though the house was in a poor condition. The result is a contemporary, unique architectural object with a distinctive local, historical anchoring with roots to the traditional functionalistic wooden villas of Norway.
The property is in the district of Ullern in Oslo, on a ridge sloping westwards towards the small stream “Makrellbekken”. The terrain falls steeply, approximately 30 meters in a westerly direction, and the site is characterized by tall pine trees amidst a splendid view towards the Oslo fjord in the south-west.
The original residence on the property dates back to 1933 and belonged to the client’s grandmother. Early functionalist wooden villas are typical for this neighborhood. The original house on this site, Sørbyhaugen 24, had no distinct conservation value. Typical functionalistic detailing, and the use of colors in the exterior and interior, has therefore been reintroduced, yet with a more modern twist on the architectural expression, details and floor plans.
The original layout of the floor plans involved a lot of corridor space and subdivided, separate rooms. The new floor plans for the house are almost a mirror image: with large open living areas around a central core consisting of kitchen, wash- and bathrooms. Vertical openings up and down from the ground floor living areas provide more contact between different floors and provide a new openness to the house that otherwise has a limited 2,4-meter ceiling height.
The property's location is magnificent with a beautiful view of the Oslo Fjord and the proximate tall pine trees. Contact with the surroundings was limited in the original house as the windows were quite small, but is now taken in to full extent through large windows from floor to ceiling. The use of color both inside and outside is generally inspired by the color scheme of the functionalism period, and also by the client’s colorful grandmother.
The project involves a high degree of sustainable reuse. Existing floor beams, chimney, fireplaces and large parts of the outer wall construction have been preserved and used onwards. At the same time new windows and doors have been installed, and the external walls and roof have been insulated to match today's energy standards. The house is now ready for a new generation, and more to come for another 90 years.
