Do we ever need a fancy house?
It was a peaceful summer afternoon when I walked through a silent forest when I enjoyed a little bit of breeze and the cute voices of little birds. Walking through a trail surrounded by 60-feet-high birch trees gave me a sense of how small humans are. Not only by size, comparatively but also by power. I thought of the ability of trees to adapt in the weirdest of places, while still giving back to the air and water in a marvellous way. I was busy with my train of thoughts as I stroll until I saw my destination before my eyes.
I arrived at a summer house where my teacher invited me and some of my friends over to have the real, Swedish summer experience. We were a bunch of architecture nerds who, unintentionally, were blinded by the complexity of high-tech architecture, until we came into the villa. It was an approximately 12 by 4-meter house, with 2 rooms and an entrance hall. I was walking inside, noticing one thing that wasn’t so obvious in addition to the complete construction of wood, painted in the traditional Swedish copper-red colour. There were only two sockets and three power switches. No fridge, one sink, and no stoves. Just a bunch of canoes, two beds, one dining table, a few chairs, and a tiny table just on the balcony facing the west coast. It was heavenly, serene, yet real. Very real.
I was following the owner-slash-architect of the house to have a 5-minute tour of the house until he finally showed me where he kept all the food. He opened a secret door on the floor, and there they are, just on top of the boulders, close to the water. He had tried to stay in the house during the time he was building it with his wife and son, and experiment the method until they concluded that it was safe to keep the food under. Safe as in — safe from contamination, animals, and high-temperature. As he was taking out a box of milk, cherries and strawberries from the boulder fridge I was astonished at how they’re fresh and cold, without the often-so-icky fridge smell.
As we sip our coffee and snacking on the fruits, I felt like I haven’t had the most fulfilling moment in such a long time. It was a heartfelt quality time surrounded by the calmness of nature and a warm friendship. Again, I felt small and mesmerized. There was not a minute that I felt like I needed to grab my phone to check on my socials. I felt like every moment I spent there was worth my full attention. The only time I took my phone out was because I would like to keep at least one picture of the beautiful memory.
I then walked home under the midnight sun, when I thought about the big question of sustainable architecture. What is needed in one’s life to make a better, sustainable living, then? For a Swede, or at least for my teacher: to be able to breathe the ocean air, have a good cup of coffee in the morning and wine in the evening, plus a little bit of canoeing by the jellyfishes seemed enough.
