The building is constructed of CLT wood-frame panels, which resonate with the predominantly timber-clad interior. Thermory ash was used to balance the long and cold winter period of our region, creating a warm and human-friendly indoor climate. The architect chose Estonian limestone as the second predominant material.

Layout

The layout of the Japandi-inspired bungalow is a further development of the original factory building. The building is a bungalow with an inner courtyard surrounded by tall and imposing windows, which fill the long corridors and living room with light.

The house has many bedrooms, all of which open onto a long limestone and wood-panelled corridor. The bedroom solutions are simple in nature but well thought out, meeting all the necessary aspects when the family arrives for a few days holiday in the countryside.

Materials

Most of the materials used in the house are natural – wood, limestone, clay paint, wool carpets. The combination was based on aesthetic choices as well as the architect’s goal to create an environment that is as natural as possible, offering peace and refreshing the soul. 

In order to enhance the value of wood as the most environmentally friendly and renewable building material today, the architect has used it in as many different ways as possible.

“Using wood as the material was agreed with the client at the very first brainstorming meeting, and I decided to take it as a challenge,” says Karits. “I had previous experience of using thermally modified material, but not on this scale.” 

In addition to the floors, the same wood has been used on the ceiling of the living room and bedroom to make the high and spacious rooms with large glass surfaces safer for people in terms of spatial experience.

“The desire to experiment with timber in such a warm and dark shade seemed exciting, but also perfectly suited to the context. I was also interested in spatial experiments, how to balance a room when you have very high ceilings and large glass surfaces, and wood was the perfect material for this.”

The internal doors, where the person opening them is in direct contact with the material, can be mentioned separately. This has been achieved by giving attention to the ergonomics of the hand, the soft shape of the wood form as well as the cleanest possible solution in the design.

Details

The unique details are made in cooperation with a specialist furniture maker and carpenters. A similar inventive mindset can be seen throughout the details of the house – a desire to rethink and restructure the expected solutions, to find new ways of arranging things, dividing space and creating atmosphere.

The kitchen is like a part of the spacious living room, but forms a completely separate zone with its low ceiling and wood-panelled walls. Glass doors with wooden frames were added between the living room and the kitchen, with panels that can be folded open and stacked on top of each other, for the time of cooking and some separation.

The splashback behind the kitchen counter was created from leftover limestone slab. The leftover stone slab was cut into narrow strips, which shows limestone as a detailed and refined finishing material. The wide kitchen sink, draining boards and worktops are made of black granite as a bespoke solution. It’s possible to enter the pantry through a hidden door.

The idea for the large fireplace in the centre of the living room came from the thought that it’s always nice to spend time by a fire. This resulted in a wide limestone seating area with a fireplace sunk into it. The upper volume is covered with steel sheets, the finish of which is achieved by a special patination method.

Light

The starting point for the lighting solution was to keep it as modest as possible. Exterior lighting is minimal and diffuse, to gently mark the path to the house, but also to make it possible to notice the starry sky. Indoor lighting is warm and enhanced by the warm shade of the thermally modified ash. The Japandi-inspired bungalow is designed primarily for holidays, which means that the emphasis is on reading light and areas where people can spend time together, such as the kitchen, sauna and living room. The rest of the lighting solution is purely pragmatic.

See more at https://hannakarits.com/

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Bold architectural statements

The hotel lobby captures your attention instantly with a large-scale installation. The hung-up sycamore in the hotel atrium is the iconic image of the whole complex.

The powerful tree permeates five stories. Its organic silhouette creates a contrast with the rhythmical geometry of the walls, horizontal lines of the floors, verticals of boards on the wall covering, and diagonals of metal banisters on the stairs. Hotel guests can lie on a round leather pouf in the hall and get a unique emotional experience of contemplating the tree from under its roots.

“We rejected the idea of a massive chandelier in the atrium in favor of a strongly meaningful installation. A tree means connection with roots and family values, growth, and development, strong bar, and flexible branches. It connects the earth and space,” said Volodymyr Nepiyvoda of YOD Group.  

Materiality of the space

The architects chose natural pale colors, honest materials, and touchable surfaces. The walls are clad with Thermory Drift thermo-spruce in Black Pearl and Smoked Brandy tones.

Drift series is characterized by wall panels with a gently worn appearance that gives the look of reclaimed wood without compromising on durability.

“We aimed to get the visual lightness and tell the story about the morning breeze that passes on the lake surface and combs the reeds. We created this emotion by the structure of the boards that we used for the wall covering of the hall. Every board is fixed into a movable groove. You can change the pattern on the wall by moving the first board in the row.

Flow between inside and outside

Visiting Terra restaurant is like being on a tour around Western Ukraine. On the right side, you can see green mountain hills. Sprinkles of distant shepherd’s fires light there at night. On the left side, you behold a peaceful lake. Its water surface is covered with ripples when it is windy, and you hear rustling reeds on its banks.

„We reflect all of that in the interior of Terra restaurant. Vast expanses, rich colors, textures and flavors, generous nature, lust for life, and existential joy. It represents the local Ukrainian vision of the four elements concept. “

The roomy terrace with American sweetgum trees extends the restaurant space. The architects aimed to make a smooth flow between the inside and outside spaces to make guests embrace harmony and inner peace.

Thermory Design Awards winners 2022

Thermory Design Awards is part of Thermory 25 celebrations for acknowledging and rewarding our brand ambassadors for creating projects that leave a lasting impact.

This year we received 43 nominations and the jury selected category winners and runner-ups.

See the winners

The post Grand Emily Hotel Lobby & Terra restaurant appeared first on Thermory.

The area that surrounds the store is merely glass and steel. Using Thermory Ash cladding the Disney store Shanghai has created an outstanding visual impact that draws people closer because of its warmth. It’s like a secret doorway to an exciting new world and it draws you in just as great Disney storytelling does.

A grandiose wooden facade makes the portal look as if it is an entrance to a stage where the world of magic unfolds. One thing is sure – you are most definitely welcome to engage with it. At Thermory we want to leave a lasting impact on the environment around us and bring the beauty of real wood into urban landscapes. This is a great example of that vision put into practice and we are thrilled to have been part of this project.

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Powerhouse Telemark, an excellent example of sustainable construction, stretches 11 floors and contains two levels of open-plan communal workspaces, as well as several more private meeting rooms and a rooftop terrace. It has a noteworthy shape with a massive slanted roof that extends past its base that is topped with photovoltaic panels for powering the building.

Almost the entire structure is wrapped in angled strips of thermally-modified pine from Thermory, including dozens of its windows on the west, north-west and north-east facade to provide natural shading. This panelling lends a dark colour to the building and beneath them are large fibre cement sheets of Cembrit panels.

The interiors are also crafted to be mindful of the environment and feature white walls, local wood, gypsum and carpet tiles made from recycled fishing nets. Pale green and tan accents add a pop of colour to the otherwise stark spaces.

Snøhetta designed the Powerhouse Telemark building as a way to alleviate the architecture industry’s heavy footprint and negative impact on the environment. “The energy sector and building industry accounts for over 40% of global industry’s heat-trapping emissions combined, according to the World Resources Institute,” Snøhetta said. “As the world’s population and the severity of the climate crisis continue to grow, we are challenged to think how to build responsibly – creating high quality spaces for people while also reducing our environmental footprint.”

About a 2-hour drive west of Oslo, Powerhouse Telemark joins a number of other Powerhouse-like structures in Norway also built by Snøhetta, including a Montessori school in Drøbak and two other office buildings, Powerhouse Kjørbo and Powerhouse Brattørkaia. Another project that is also clad in Thermory pine boards is a rental complex in Poland , which was also built this year in the holiday mountain town of Karpacz.

Discover even more ways to incorporate Thermory into your interior design and architecture projects.

Thermory Design Awards winners 2022

Thermory Design Awards is part of Thermory 25 celebrations for acknowledging and rewarding our brand ambassadors for creating projects that leave a lasting impact.

This year we received 43 nominations and the jury selected category winners and runner-ups.

See the winners

The post Powerhouse Telemark appeared first on Thermory.

A pearl amid forests and bogs

The post Maidla Nature Resort appeared first on Thermory.

The oblong shape of the house is due to the nature of the plot. The rectangular, minimalist shape has been divided into smaller parts. In places of intersections, windows have been inserted to illuminate the interior of the house. The individual shapes are slightly shifted against each other, which makes the whole look lighter.

On the shorter edges, the façade was clad with Benchmark by Thermory thermo-pine cladding, color-matched to the pine trunks. The long walls are perpendicular to the wooden ones and finished in gray plaster.

The main entrance to the building is not obvious. At first glance, we cannot see it because it is hidden between the wooden blocks of the building. The only thing that leads us to it is the pathway of the driveway.

The solid wall you see from the street is a monolithic wall without windows, fully covered with thermo-pine cladding. It has a hidden entrance to the underground garage.

The rear part of the house, opening onto the garden, is a fully glazed façade. It is a complete contradiction of the front elevation. The panoramic window in the living room opens onto the forest, and the glazing of the same size on the first floor lets the pine atmosphere into the master bedroom. The building consists of 3 floors.

“After entering the house, we will find ourselves in a spacious, two-story hall, bordered by glazing with the internal half-patio, because one wall opens onto the surroundings. The other walls are fully glazed, thus letting a little forest into the house and illuminating this part of the building. It creates an amazing harmony and shows how close to nature you can live,” says Anna Paszkowska-Grudziąż, architect at the 81.waw.pl studio.

Project overview was first published in Polish on 81.waw.pl studio webpage

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