Stealth Stone Summer Home Rises Right Up from the Rocks

Set along the rocky coast of Norway, you might not even notice this home in the distance sitting there on the shore – it blurs boundaries between architecture and landscape in a sublime (and stealthy) way.


In fact, the house (designed by Jarmund/Vigsnæs) had to do conform to its surrounding environment simply to get a permit in the first place – but the result goes beyond meeting bare necessities of local building codes.

Some of the stone walls preexist the current structure and were simply left in place and built around. Others were created from broken rocks that resulting from blasting deeper into the site (another strategy to ‘bury’ this house in the boulder-based site). Thin wood and glass elements make up cladding and railings, reinforcing the camouflage by matching the natural stone colors in the first case and letting views through in the latter.

A crisp, flat, rectangular swimming pool mediates between the main living, sleeping, eating and cooking areas of the house and the water below – a recreational buffer between contemporary interiors and the wild rocks, ocean and horizon beyond.

Made in another place or from other materials, this home might feel somewhat cold, modern or detached, but it seems surprisingly warm as it stands – no doubt due in part to its integration with this rocky beach shore, framing of environmental views and relationships to the existing stone below and around the site.