Adaptable House | Henning Larsen

The two-storey house has a floor area of 147 m2 (gross area 160 m2) and contains a large kitchen/family room and a bathroom on the ground floor and a sec- ond bathroom, roof patios and three bedrooms on the first floor. The building has a strip foundation and a reinforced concrete solid ground floor. External walls and facades use both lightweight concrete panels and a light timber-panel construction. Window areas are triple glazed in frames of a glass-reinforced com- posite, and the roof is clad with roofing felt. Floor sur- faces on the ground floor are polished concrete; up- stairs floors are in bamboo parquet. Internal walls consist of flexible drywall modules.

The need for fl exibility in a house is mainly centred on three things: re- doing the kitchen, changing the size and layout of the rooms, and extend- ing the house. All three scenarios cost resources and CO2 to execute because building a new wall requires new materials which have to be pro- duced, generating carbon emissions. Also if a wall is demolished, it cre- ates waste, fi guring heavily in the carbon accounts, when disposed of. Not so in the Adaptable House. It is built to be rebuilt, recognising that a
house is not a constant but must be capable of change over time to ac- commodate the full life cycle of a family: as a young couple without children, as a family of four or more, when the children move out, and fi - nally in old age, when the need for care arises. Thanks to the house’s fl exible layout, which changes easily by means of sliding doors, movable cabinet walls and facade elements, it is possible to alter and extend the existing layout with a minimum of eff ort, time and money – and with lit- tle or no carbon emissions as a di- rect result.

The house’s structural components can be dismantled without destroying exist- ing components, and the replaced components can be reused because they are uncomplicated, produced in standard sizes and from standard materials. On the ground floor the kitchen and two same-size living areas can be divided into three separate rooms or com- bined into one big living area – just by operating the kitchen’s three sliding doors. On the first floor, a continu- ous wooden floor and three movable cabinet walls ensure that the area adapts to any configuration: one large space, a master bedroom, two rooms for the kids and common playroom, or an office and walk-in closet. All the technical and electrical equipment runs along the facade wall, and sockets are stick-ons that can be placed anywhere. In other words, the Adaptable House offers flexibility with a 50-year perspective, and fits any change in living conditions – or maybe just the next party.