Tham & Videgård Arkitekter designs Swedish “vertical village” built from CLT | Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Stockholm-based architecture practice Tham & Videgård Arkitekter has unveiled designs for a new housing typology in Gothenburg, Sweden, that will be built from cross-laminated timber. Named the “vertical village,” the project is a “solid timber” iteration of the firm’s previous development by the same name that had been designed for Stockholm in 2009. Like its predecessor, the Gothenburg “vertical village” champions a dense and family-centric development built around a series of connected garden spaces.

Proposed as part of a larger site along Landvetter Lake, the Gothenburg “vertical village” was created as an alternative to the row house typology. Each dwelling will be set on a rounded plot surrounded by tall evergreen hedges to create a secluded and private garden for each homeowner. The vertical green massing will also help shape the network of winding pathways that connect the homes to the wider community.

All the houses in the development will look identical with a tapered shape that rises to three stories in height. “The houses represent a new vertical typology that minimizes the footprint in order to leave as much land as possible for cultivation,” the architects said of the housing typology. For visual variety, the 140-square-meter row homes will be finished in different colors ranging from red, green, black and gray. The buildings will be constructed with cross-laminated timber and prefabrication construction methods to meet the highest environmental and energy standards.

The homes will offer a range of one to four bedrooms. The ground floor houses the main social spaces that—thanks to the privacy afforded by the tall hedges—open up to a private garden through full-height glazing. The second floor contains the bedrooms overlooking views of the neighborhood and landscape. The topmost floor consists of a studio with a large skylight.