{"id":820808,"date":"2026-03-12T13:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/820808\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:35:19","slug":"house-grimstad-in-norway-is-a-test-of-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/820808\/","title":{"rendered":"House Grimstad in Norway is “a test of reduction”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local studio Waelgaard Salim Arkitekter has completed House Grimstad, a barn-like dwelling in Norway<\/a> that contrasts black tar-stained timber cladding<\/a> with warm interiors lined in spruce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 160-square-metre building was designed as a holiday home<\/a> for a family of four on a site surrounded by fruit trees and farms on the outskirts of the town of Grimstad.<\/p>\n

Working with a small footprint and a limited budget, Waelgaard Salim Arkitekter<\/a> looked to demonstrate how a deliberately simple form and material palette can create generous, warm-feeling spaces.<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorWaelgaard Salim Arkitekter has completed a holiday home in Norway<\/p>\n

“The project began with a simple question: how little do we need to build in order to create a generous home?” founders Siri Waelgaard and Alexander Minge Salim told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“As a young practice, this project became a test of reduction. We asked ourselves how far we could simplify without losing generosity,” they added.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to make a low-cost house that still feels rich, not through complexity, but through light, proportion and material presence.”<\/p>\n

\"HouseIt is clad in tar-stained timber<\/p>\n

Spread across two storeys, the home is divided into an open-plan ground floor containing living, dining, kitchen and study areas, and a more compartmentalised first floor housing bedrooms.<\/p>\n

The U-shaped ground floor wraps a central, timber-lined stair and bathroom core, with a double-height dining space that is illuminated by a skylight and opens onto a garden terrace.<\/p>\n

\"StudySpruce plywood lines the interior<\/p>\n

Strategically-placed windows of different sizes ensure each space has a relationship to the surrounding garden, ranging from a horizontal window in the kitchen, a large square opening for a reading corner and a tall, skinny window on the landing.<\/p>\n

The glue-laminated timber (glulam) structure has been left exposed throughout the interiors of House in Grimstad, accompanied by walls and ceilings lined entirely in spruce ergoboard.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"I\/O<\/p>\n

Erling Berg creates I\/O Cabin as a summer house for “inside-outside” living\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

While often covered, this exposed boarding was chosen as a cost-effective way to create a warm atmosphere and as a material that a single carpenter could easily handle during construction.<\/p>\n

Externally, the pale tone of these boards is contrasted by planks of dark, tar-stained heartwood pine that will weather over time.<\/p>\n

\"HouseLiving and dining areas are held on the ground floor<\/p>\n

Concrete floors were used on the home’s ground floor and solid pine boards for the first floor, while the roof is topped with asphalt rolls.<\/p>\n

“The intention was to use materials that are strong, natural and able to withstand time without constant maintenance,” said Waelgaard and Salim.<\/p>\n

“We tried to avoid layered finishes and instead allowed the construction to remain visible,” they added. “Aging is not something to resist, but something to welcome.”<\/p>\n

\"HouseThe bedrooms are contained on the upper floor<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Norway, architecture practice Rever & Drage recently expanded a traditional red-painted home in Raelingen,<\/a> using a matching red palette of timber, brick and steel, and Rabagast Studio created Watercave, a timber sauna that floats on a lake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The photography is courtesy of Waelgaard Salim Architects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local studio Waelgaard Salim Arkitekter has completed House Grimstad, a barn-like dwelling in Norway that contrasts black tar-stained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,141093,4022,77,12968,1115,236309,126129,126130,218696,223294,144078,16,15],"class_list":["post-820808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-blackened-wood","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-holiday-homes","tag-norway","tag-norwegian-houses","tag-sectionall","tag-sectionarchitecture","tag-sectionexclusives","tag-spruce","tag-timber-cladding","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116216471992984879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}