ØRESTRAND

In 1929 sea captain Ivar Bengtsson from Ven built his proud family house on his home island - a tall brick villa typical of the time. He named it Ørestrand - “Öresund sea shore” - with a Danish spelling in honour of his wife from Denmark.

About half a century later the house was sold and turned into a hostel. In the 1990s and 2000s, extension after extension was built to house more and more hostel beds and facilities, radically altering the character of the house and the site.

Then, in 2021, some 92 years after captain Bengtsson built it, another family bought the property with the intent of restoring it into a family summer home. Albert Orrling Architecture was assigned the delicate task to lead the total make-over of the property.

The project - situated within a nature and culture heritage protection area - is in the middle of the typically long and and complex building permit process, due to which not many drawings can be publicly presented at the moment. The concept, however, is to set the old villa free from the late extensions and replace them with a more appealing and functional addition that respects the original villa as well as the amazing natural scene.

Inspired by immortal mid-century modernist houses from the Danish as well as the Swedish shores of Öresund, by architects such as Poul and Helle Kjærholm, Wilhem Wohlert, Josef Frank and Per Friberg, the current proposal is a light pavillion of natural materials, open to the sky and the free horizon.