Tehuset

Type of building Tea house

Location Bulltofta, Malmö


Builders Jarand Nå


Architect Jarand Nå

Year built 2018


A word from the architect My family rents an allotment together with friends in eastern Malmö. The allotment had space for a small building, so I drew and built a tea house during my spare time. On bright summer evenings, while my children were asleep, I timbered the frame then tarred it one cold November day and clad it with hessian.

The building is made of simple materials. Sawn spruce timber, 100 x 100 mm, forms the frame, while joists and boards form the walls covered with hessian and several layers of black tar. The floorboards made from 25 mm spruce have been brushed, so that the rough structure of the summer wood emerges. The floorboards sit on a grid of beams with dimension 75 x 75 mm. A fireplace made of black-pigmented concrete is submerged to the same level as the floor. The roof is open to the sky, but a waxed cotton fabric can be pulled over to provide shade or protection from the rain. A stone on the ground provided the necessary step between the garden and the floor.

The concept of rooms in nature is something I often return to ever since I grew up on the banks of a fjord in western Norway. The function of the tea house depends on its visitors. The building, in its present location, feels both natural and alien. It’s a wonderful place.