“Stop here a moment.”

Rickard Rotstein pauses as we approach the entrance to his Swedish island summer home. There’s not much to see. Ahead is a windowless box of a structure, only 26 feet wide and a bit more than 9 feet tall. Rather than set on the ground, it appears to float above it, with a rocky slope rising underneath so that the two meet at the corner.

“I did this intentionally,” says Rickard, who is also the home’s architect. “I wanted the first impression to be a very small, modest building, like the old summer houses. When people first come, they think that’s all there is. But then they step inside.”

Rickard knows how to design for effect. He has been a fixture in Swedish architecture since he rose to prominence in the 1980s and launched his eponymous firm in 1992. With insights amassed over the ensuing decades, he had clear ideas about what he wanted in this home for himself and his family, and how to achieve it. A place to “reload the battery,” as he puts it, the house is located in the archipelago an hour-and-a-half drive and a short ferry ride from Rickard’s primary residence in central Stockholm.

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Beyond its unassuming entrance and dark facade of local spruce, the house is full of light and surprises. The space stretches out 65 feet ahead upon entry and angles upward to reveal a loft above the spacious, open-plan living areas. The home’s layout reimagines the workplace design concepts Rickard helped pioneer early in his career, which allow focused individual work and open team communication to coexist by positioning glass-walled offices around central communal areas.

“Having the loft allows you to have your own zone, but you can still have eye contact and speak to one another,” he says. “You can use the space freely and in parallel without disturbing anyone.”

“When you come in, you immediately get an understanding of the space, and that leads to a feeling of safety.”
—Rickard Rotstein, architect and resident

Along the entire south-facing side of the home, sun streams in through full-height windows and glass doors and bounces off white walls. The doors open onto an expansive patio, and above the primary bedroom, which cantilevers over the cliff, is a smaller terrace. Together, the decks more than double the home’s living space. They also offer spectacular views of the sea.

“A lot of things I used here come from a deep knowledge and understanding of design, while with others I thought, let’s try it,” says Rickard. One example of the latter was using rough and premium materials together. Fine black marble was sourced for the kitchen backsplash, while oriented strand board (OSB) with only a transparent lacquer finish was used for the ceiling.

“Usually the OSB is covered, but we thought it was so beautiful,” says Rickard. “Good architecture is a mixture of getting the right things in balance. It’s an art. It’s not mathematical.”

To get the balance right, Rickard lived in a wooden cottage on the property for a year during the design to study the topography and conditions. Preserving the site’s natural elements was paramount. In the end, the trees decided the shape of the house, and none of the rock was removed despite the steep slope. The pine used to build the house was sourced from the island.

“It’s like a hideaway,” says Rickard. He and his wife spend up to two months here in summer, when his son’s family often joins them, but he prefers the occasional weekend visits in autumn and spring. “You can follow how everything is waking up or falling asleep,” he says.

And is it the retirement home he dreamed of? “Well, retirement isn’t really going to happen,” says Rickard, 70, with a smile. “I cannot quit because it’s not work. I think I will keep doing it for the rest of my life.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Rickard Rotstein

Structural Engineering: Civilbyrån AB

Landscape, Lighting, and Interior Design: Rickard Rotstein

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