Home Is Where the Hearth Is A modern home in Finland revolves around three pillars of traditional family life: the kitchen, the fireplace, and the sauna. Carpenter Matti Salminen, a family friend, built the birch cabinets and island for the kitchen of a new home outside of Helsinki. The architect, Tuomas Siitonen, situated a lofted family room on the mezzanine above.
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text by Ben Norris photos by Tim Van de Velde
project House M-M architect Tuomas Siitonen Office, tuomassiitonen.fi location Oulunkylä, Finland
The suburb of Oulunkylä, less than five miles north of central Helsinki, is home to a mixture of wooden villas, row houses, and concrete apartment buildings. On a sloping plot next to her parents’ home, Vilma and her husband, Juho, wanted to build a structure that could fit in with its surroundings but feel completely their own. Working with architect Tuomas Siitonen, the couple had a few requirements going into the project: The home needed to be made of wood, preserve the views from the house next door, and have a separate living space for Vilma’s grandmother. For the exterior they chose Siberian larch, a dense wood that changes with time to a silvery-gray color. The dip in the center of the roof preserves the APRIL 2015 DWELL
PHOTO BY TK TK TK TK TK TK TK
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