Modern barn – House KD
The north-east coast of Sweden’s island of Öland is characterized by small villages for fishermen and farmers. Traditionally, the houses and barns here are placed a distance from the coast where trees and shrubs provide protection against stormy winds. The buildings are almost exclusively built with wooden panels and sheet metal roofing.
It is here that Architect Timo Karasalo, from GWSK Arkitekter, was contracted to design a year-round vacation home with a focus on sustainability and ease of maintenance. The result, called House KD, achieved this goal and has been nominated for the 2017 World Architecture Festival (WAF) Award.
House KD was designed and built from Karasalo’s vision of a “modern barn”, with a typology that naturally connects to the building traditions of the village. The materials and the details, however, are intended to give clear signals that the house was built in modern times. The traditional barn pitched roof made from GreenCoat® color coated steel, from SSAB, is an example of this.
The client's requests for a maintenance-free façade and roof, together with the advantage of fast installation, led to GreenCoat® being chosen as the material for the corrugated steel roof. High durability and a low environmental footprint were other factors that went into the decision.
GreenCoat® is widely known among metal roofers for its easy hand forming, long color retention and resistance to UV radiation, corrosion as well as scratches. Most GreenCoat® products feature a Bio-based Technology (BT) coating with a substantial portion of Swedish rapeseed oil instead of fossil based oils, which are traditionally used. The unique, patented BT solution developed by SSAB reduces the environmental footprint significantly.
In addition, GreenCoat® provides building specifiers with a significantly lighter material compared to alternative solutions and has the lowest temperature elongation of all metals for reduced buckling.
The WAF Awards are highly recognized globally by architects and are presented each year at the World Architecture Festival, a three-day event in Berlin, Germany for architects and interior design professionals.
