Apartments
1
House Bear
Year
2019
Location
Espoo
Area
Photography
Ville Vappula
Design Team
Atte Aaltonen
Pauli Siponen
Apartments
1
Renovation of a 1961 built villa in Tapiola.
The architect couple Elma and Erik Lindroos, known for their Home Economics College (Elma and Erik Lindroos, 1956) and Postitalo (Erik Lindroos, Jorma Järvi, Kaarlo Borg, 1938), designed Talo Otsola in the garden city of Tapiola on the seashore in 1961, known for its functionalist buildings and modernist villas.
The building, like many of its contemporaries' small houses from Tapiola, is protected in the town plan. The house was almost in its 1960s appearance until 2017, when the new owners decided to save the house and give it a long-awaited renovation. In 2017, there was rot and mold growth on the exterior walls, and asbestos on the interior floor surfaces. The condition of the house was so bad that almost everything from the floor to the ceiling had to be new, while at the same time preserving the protected exterior architecture.
Following the style of the mid-century modern.
The goal was to make a modern home faithful to its construction period. Inside, the entire floor plan was redesigned to be more functional. The first floor was originally mostly dark basements. By enlarging the windows and lowering the ground level to the basement, we got a bright second living room and spa facilities with a sea view. On the second floor, the rooms were rearranged so that the bedrooms are grouped in the part facing the street, while the living room and open kitchen form a spacious, unified space facing the yard.
All the surfaces of the house were renewed, and the original palette of surface materials was used in the material choices, such as in the linoleum floor and wall paneling. Oak was used for the floor and all fixed furniture to achieve a Scandinavian minimalist look. Strong colors and black were used to create contrast in the spirit of 1960s modernism. Many of the fixtures were made by a local carpenter. The fireplace in the living room is the only preserved fragment of the original in the house.
In the exterior parts of the house, the renovation was done taking into account building protection, repairing and enhancing. The old windows and doors were renewed and replaced with handmade oak ones. A pergola was added to the entrance and new terraces were built in the backyard. With up and down facade lights, the outdoor lighting was harmonious and suitably restrained.
