Garden Stair House / Anders Berensson Architects

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The backside of the house is carved into a hill where two bedrooms are located. The concrete foundation becomes a concrete wall where the floor level is below ground. All windows are placed on top of the concrete foundation. The shifts in heights create different relations between the openings and their surroundings. In the bedrooms below ground, you get the meadow at eye level offering a close look at flowers and insects right outside the window.The house follows the slope on the garden side and lets the concrete garden stairs continue into the house. On this side, the continuation of the stairs becomes a social amphitheater with big glasses connecting it to the garden. The garden stair is also the entrance to the main building and is covered by a cantilevering roof protecting the stairs but also creating a sense of common space with the inside.The social room is connected to a loft. From the loft, you reach a viewing platform underneath an openable skylight from where two people can sit and get an ocean view.Text description provided by the architects.Garden stair house is an extension to a 1960th vacation home on the south coast of Sweden. The house is situated alongside a garden stair that continues into the house becoming an amphitheater for socializing, watching movies, or playing video games. Doing an extension in a quite complex terrain we decided to continue the expression of the existing building in materials and colors and let the local adaptions and shifts in heights become our main design opportunities.