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Architects: Söderberg Söderberg
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Mikael Olsson
Text description provided by the architects. AB Stockholmshem, a company run by the City of Stockholm, is one of Sweden's largest public housing firms. The company's new high-rise headquarters in the Stockholm suburb Skärholmen holds offices, a Youth Centre, and 102 flats of different sizes. It was commissioned to Söderberg Söderberg by the City Council in 2013 as part of a general ambition to move central City administration away from the city center and 'closer to the people'. The new building aims to bring more people into the Skärholmen Centre, day and night, and will hopefully communicate some of the tenants' lives and commotion to the neighborhood.
Skärholmen, where the new building stands right in the center, is one of the first Swedish 'million program' suburbs; a scheme spanning from 1965 to -75 when one million publicly owned apartments were to be built. Inspiration for the original planners and architects in Skärholmen came partly from ancient Rome – a mixture of alleyways, public squares, terraces, monumentality, and personality. Famous today for the first IKEA warehouse and an extensive international food market, Skärholmen has Sweden's largest mix of nationalities; a cultural hub that also faces social challenges.
Skärholmen is spread out, flat, and relatively low. The new, centrally placed, 23-floor high-rise relates to its immediate context but also the stepped housing developments on the hill north of the site – a landmark in and for the district and the City of Stockholm, up close and at a distance. The building's plan is systematically built up through a pillar deck system with a 7.20-meter module – a 1.20-meter module grouped into larger units. The outer walls throughout have modularly placed windows and window doors made possible by fully covering balcony bands on each floor. The balcony's transparent glass railings attach to the grid system of pillars and beams covering the entire building. The roofs above the office and residential areas have planted terraces with accessibility for residents and staff. Entrances are in the four corners, in the southwest through a common, accessible entry for all.
The function of the facade gives the building its appearance. The balcony strips prevent the spread of fire between stories, enabling full-height windows and doors in all openings for light, accessibility and increased visual contact between the inside and outside, also providing the required noise reduction through soundproof but transparent glass railings and sound-reductive roof elements. The Terrazzo grid covering the exterior sorts out the messy whole that balcony-covered facades usually entail. Closely spaced pillars provide a safer stay on high balconies. Shadows move over pillars and walls, varying appearances throughout the day. Columns, balcony fronts, and facade cladding are executed in brushed, mild green cement mosaic; a 'noble' concrete of Roman origins that can be found in the surrounding 1960s architecture as well as in its inspirations.
