FOJAB designs housing on Ekerö after parallel assignments

A new residential area that references both Ralph Erskine and Frank Lloyd Wright - FOJAB is behind one of the selected proposals for Ekerö Strand for Wallfast after parallel assignments.

In Ekerö, 25 minutes from central Stockholm, the new residential area of Ekerö Strand will be developed. Around 550 new homes, a preschool and a beach promenade will be built here. Wallfast is building about half of the new apartments.

The detailed plan for Ekerö Strand is unusually controlled. The municipality has wanted to ensure that the new development harmonizes with Ekerö center, which was designed by Ralph Erskine and completed in 1991.

- The many detailed requirements in the detailed plan stem from a desire to break down the scale of the larger volumes. They want to give the houses the same variegated, small-scale expression as Erskines, says Cage Copher, architect at FOJAB. "It has been a challenge, but we have found a harmonious design that meets all requirements and feels like Ekerö.

The parallel assignment included rental apartments and condominiums in block houses, lamella houses and point houses. FOJAB will continue to work on two of the four properties that were included in the parallel assignment, and has also received the landscape assignment. The same clear division of volumes to create logic and legibility can be found in both the slatted houses and the point buildings, but the expression differs.

- The point buildings do not have the same design requirements in the detailed plan. They have more of a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to them, with large glazed balconies and windows over the corners. They are very beautifully situated next to the forest and we wanted to give them a bit more of a natural feel than the slatted houses facing the center, says Cage Copher.

Three different apartment types project in different directions to maximize the view. Each living room has windows facing three different directions. The balconies have one glazed part and one without. The louvre houses also have good daylight qualities and the possibility of dividing a larger bedroom into two smaller rooms.

The houses will be built with a CLT frame.