The Long View

The power of nature and the influence of modernist architecture come together in Buster Delin’s beautifully designed Swedish home

- Jo Leevers

This is a home that is immersed in its landscape. At one end of its long rectangular structure, a glazed box reaches out towards the river, suspended just above the ferns and lush ground foliage. Meanwhile, the rear of the building is literally rooted in the soil. A wall of hefty granite stones that was already part of the riverside landscape was adapted to make the back wall of the bedrooms. ‘A century ago, those rocks were transported by horse and cart and then lifted into place by hand. Now we rest our heads against them,’ says Buster, who designed this house for himself, his wife Olivia and their four children.

He built directly onto the foundations of an old workshop making traditional Swedish ceramic stoves. By the time Buster was a young boy, the workers had gone and this site had became a place for family picnics. ‘My grandfather loved to hold family celebrations on this spot, so it always felt like a magical place,’ he smiles.

The size of the old building dictated the shape of the new summer home but, within those structural parameters, Buster’s imagination had free rein. ‘In a way, this house was an opportunity for me to learn my craft as an architect and I thought for a long time about how to frame the views of the landscape,’ he says.