Umami Park in Hallonbergen in Sundbyberg is being developed into an attractive urban environment with new public spaces, commerce and housing. FOJAB has worked with the landscape planning for the entire area and has designed three point buildings in its western part.

The buildings are freely placed in the terrain and nature is allowed to come right up to the facades. The courtyard lies like a thin slice on the ground between the houses and gently connects to the entrances.

This organic nature has inspired both the landscaping and the exterior design of the houses, whose main feature is the rounded balconies with metal fronts that wrap all the way around the brick facades of the houses like wide, shiny gift ribbons. Adding additional bands of concrete gave the volumes a truly luxurious feel.

The volumes are simple straight blocks, but with a horizontal division of the façade as a playful nod to the older buildings in the area. The balconies are arranged around and over the corners of the facade. They contribute to the horizontal division, but also add further drama, complexity and detailing.

The point houses are made of prefabricated concrete elements where the concrete has been allowed to be partially visible, combined with brick and sheet metal sections. Together with the organically shaped balconies, the three façade materials give the buildings their character. The design principle is the same, but each of the houses has been given a different coloring of both brick and sheet metal and a different distribution of concrete sections.