No.4

Stockholm is currently undergoing a large expansion, mostly focused on providing housing for the rapidly growing population. This results in major redelopments of formely periferal areas containing offices and industry into new urban mixed use and residential areas. Nacka Strand is one of the areas currently undergoing transformation. The No4 project consists of a conversion of an existing office building in Nacka Strand into housing (210 apartments) and a preschool. The existing building was built as offices, and its design was influenced by the history of Nacka Strand as an industrial area. It was built as a prefabricated concrete structure with an in situ built brick facade, and some interesting façade details, such as steel beams over the window openings. The conversion included the complete interior reorganisation of the building from a monofunctional office building, with large open floorplates, to a residential building with almost 70 different types of apartments, ranging in size from 35 to 180 sqm. The exterior envelope was mostly retained, but all window opening were enlarged and new windows were added, within the logic of the orginal facade grid. The brick and the steel beams were retained, and new windows, balconies and steel facade pillars were added to the remodeled part. On top of the building’s stepped form, one-storey superstructures have been added, with prefabricated steel frames and specially made facade panels made of bent steel plates with distinct flanges and bolts. Through the facades of the superstructures, together with other steel details around terraces, balconies and railings, the building is characterized by a meeting between existing bricks and added steel. The crown of steel that the penthouses constitute relates to a kind of industrial romantic memory of the former factory environment in Nacka Strand.