A modern Scandinavian home design demonstrates how site constraints can drive creative architectural solutions rather than limit them. The Blue House in Roskilde, Denmark, designed by architect Sigurd Larsen in 2020, rises tall and narrow on a small hill west of Copenhagen to capture views over the Roskilde Fjord and the medieval city center. At 172 square meters (approximately 1,851 square feet), the home stacks living spaces vertically across two floors, with a lightweight wooden upper structure built atop an existing 1930s brick house. For another example of how showcase modern barnhouse designs use dramatic forms to respond to their settings, the contrast between the two approaches reveals how widely architecture can vary while responding to similar site conditions.
Vertical Design for Site and Views
Building tall and narrow on a hilltop site allowed the design to capture panoramic views without requiring a large footprint at ground level. The vertical orientation minimizes land disturbance while maximizing the visual connection to the surrounding landscape. This approach works especially well on sloped lots where a spread-out single-story layout would require extensive grading and foundation work. The hilltop position of the Blue House means the view corridor opens above neighboring structures and tree lines, making the vertical form effective for sightlines.
Tall Narrow Form for View Capture
A tall narrow building form creates a small ground footprint that preserves existing vegetation and site drainage patterns. In the Blue House, this vertical stacking places each room at a different elevation, giving each level a unique perspective on the fjord and cathedral. The 172 square meter total is distributed across two main floors plus a roof terrace, achieving a density that would require a much larger site if built horizontally.
Balcony and Corner Window Orientation
The upper level provides a balcony for enjoying sunsets, oriented to capture the western sky. A large corner window in the living room frames the view of the fjord and cathedral. Careful window placement and orientation maximize views without excessive heat gain or loss. South and west facing windows in Scandinavian homes take advantage of passive solar heating during cold months while overhangs and balcony placements provide shading during summer. The window selection approach used in farmhouse renovations shows how similar principles of orientation and frame sizing apply across different architectural styles.
Two-Story Living Space Layout
The main living spaces are spread over two floors, with the mid-floor housing an open kitchen and dining room that extends into the garden through a large terrace facing southwest. The upper level contains the living room with its corner window and balcony. Separating the kitchen and dining from the living room across two floors creates distinct zones for cooking, eating, and relaxing, each with its own relationship to the outdoors.
Mid-Floor Kitchen and Dining with Terrace
The mid-floor placement puts the kitchen and dining at garden level, allowing the terrace to function as an extension of the indoor dining area. Sliding or folding glass doors connect the dining room to the terrace, creating a single large space for entertaining. The southwest orientation ensures afternoon and evening sun for outdoor meals, matching the typical Danish preference for late-day outdoor living. For structural approaches used in similar renovation projects, the Larsen truss retrofit method described in Fine Homebuilding demonstrates how lightweight framing systems can reinforce existing stud walls during floor additions.
Upper Level Living Room with Fjord Views
The living room occupies the upper level, raised above the tree line and neighboring roofs for unobstructed views. A large corner window wraps two walls, providing a wide field of vision without requiring multiple separate openings. The balcony accessible from this level offers an outdoor space for enjoying Copenhagen’s long summer evenings. Placing the living room at the top rather than the ground floor is a deliberate inversion of typical layouts, prioritizing views and light over ground-level garden access.
Adding a New Floor on an Existing Structure
The upper level of the Blue House is a lightweight wooden construction built on top of an existing brick house from the 1930s. This approach preserves the original structure’s embodied energy while adding modern living space with better insulation and contemporary finishes. Adding floors to existing buildings is a sustainable alternative to demolition and new construction, reducing material waste and preserving neighborhood character.
Lightweight Wooden Construction
Wood framing is significantly lighter than masonry or steel, making it suitable for additions atop existing structures that were not originally designed for extra loads. A typical wood-framed floor addition weighs 15 to 25 pounds per square foot compared to 80 to 100 pounds for a concrete slab. The existing 1930s brick structure provided a solid base, but the new upper floor had to be designed to distribute loads through the existing walls without overstressing the foundation. For a broader look at how showcase home designs inspire real-world renovation decisions, the techniques used in this project demonstrate the same careful structural planning that applies to any floor addition.
Corrugated Steel Climate Shield
A layer of corrugated steel was installed on all facades and the roof to add extra insulation to the existing lower part of the house. This climate shield wraps the entire structure in a continuous protective layer, reducing thermal bridging where the old and new construction meet. Corrugated steel is durable, low-maintenance, and provides a rain screen that keeps moisture away from the insulation layer behind it.
| Construction Element | Existing (1930s Brick) | New Addition (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Structural system | Brick masonry load-bearing walls | Lightweight timber frame |
| Insulation approach | Minimal or none by modern standards | Continuous layer with climate shield |
| Exterior cladding | Brick with corrugated steel overlay | Corrugated steel climate shield |
| Roof construction | Original roof replaced | Steel-clad with integrated insulation |
| Floor loading capacity | Designed for one story | Reinforced for two-story occupancy |
Individual Children’s Room Design Approaches
The two children’s rooms in the Blue House each received a distinct character that matches the individual preferences of their inhabitants. Rather than making both rooms identical, the design creates two different spatial experiences within the same home. This personalized approach to children’s bedrooms recognizes that rooms used daily for sleep, study, and play should reflect the user’s needs rather than a standardized template.
Horizontal Room Configuration
One children’s room is organized horizontally with a panorama window running along a drawing desk. The wide horizontal window provides even natural light across the work surface, reducing shadows and glare for drawing and homework. This layout works well for children who spend significant time at a desk and benefit from a connection to the outdoors while working. The low window sill allows the child to see outside while seated.
Vertical Room and Loft Bed
The other children’s room is organized vertically with a loft bed that includes a small window at the highest point of the house. This configuration makes efficient use of a smaller footprint by stacking the sleeping area above the floor. The small window at the peak creates a private lookout point that feels like a treehouse or crow’s nest, turning a practical sleeping arrangement into a daily adventure. Compact rooms with loft beds can reduce the floor area needed by 30 to 40 square feet compared to standard bed placements while adding play value. For more on how passive house design principles influenced the insulation performance and window placement in this renovation, the R House project demonstrates comparable attention to thermal envelope continuity in residential construction.
Exterior Color and Material Strategy
The blue facade makes the house blend with the dark blue hues of the Scandinavian sky. On foggy and rainy days, the bright blue color emits optimism against the desaturated gray background, highlighting the blue tones of the mist. This intentional color choice connects the building to its atmospheric context rather than competing with it. The color selection for exterior cladding in northern climates must account for how materials appear under overcast skies, low winter sun, and long twilight hours.
Blue Facade Blending with Sky
The deep blue exterior works on multiple levels. From a distance, the house recedes into the skyline rather than standing out as a stark silhouette. Up close, the blue provides a saturated background that changes appearance with cloud cover and time of day. Scandinavian architects frequently use dark exterior colors to make buildings feel grounded in their landscape, with blue, black, and deep gray being common choices for modern homes in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The passive house remodeling approach used in the Everhart project shows how similar material considerations for cladding and insulation apply when retrofitting existing structures to higher performance standards.
Coherent Monolith Appearance
The corrugated steel cladding wraps the entire building including the roof, creating a unified monolith appearance that treats the old and new construction as one coherent form. This visual continuity was a deliberate goal, since the project involved adding a new structure on top of an older one. By cladding both the old brick and new wood construction in the same steel material, the transition between eras becomes invisible from the exterior. The result is a home that reads as a single intentional design rather than an addition.
Insulation and Climate Adaptation
Adding a continuous layer of insulation was a central requirement of the renovation, since the original 1930s brick structure had minimal thermal protection by current building standards. The corrugated steel climate shield on all facades and the roof serves both as weatherproofing and as a rainscreen that protects the insulation layer. This comprehensive approach to the building envelope eliminates thermal bridges and reduces energy consumption significantly compared to the original structure.
Adding Insulation to Existing Walls
Retrofitting insulation to an existing brick wall requires careful moisture management. Adding insulation on the exterior side keeps the brick within the warm envelope, preventing condensation within the wall cavity. The corrugated steel rainscreen provides an air gap that allows any moisture that penetrates the cladding to drain and dry. Exterior insulation retrofits for existing masonry walls typically add R-15 to R-25 depending on climate zone and available depth for the insulation layer.
Climate Shield Performance on Facades and Roof
The corrugated steel cladding functions as a continuous weather barrier across all surfaces. On the roof, the steel provides a durable, long-lasting surface with a lifespan exceeding 50 years with minimal maintenance. The standing seam profiles direct water efficiently, reducing the risk of leaks at the junction between the old brick walls and the new roof plane. Benefits of a continuous climate shield include reduced air leakage, lower heating costs, and improved comfort through elimination of cold spots on interior walls. The ultra-low carbon housing lessons from Vancouver’s Vienna House project demonstrate how comprehensive insulation strategies and careful material selection can achieve Passive House certification while also reducing embodied carbon in new and renovated structures alike.