Budget Breakdown: In Norway, a $91K Garden Studio Teeters Atop a Boulder

Sebastian Uthaug and Kristin Karlsson, a Norwegian couple with two young children, had long dreamed of building a small shed to serve as an additional workspace in their garden in Bergen, Norway. Kristin shared this dream with architect Cristian Stefanescu, founder of A-Works, while they were developing a project for the cultural institution she worked for—and he jumped at the chance to be involved.

"We don’t do many private projects," he says. "But, when we do, we try to create a situation where we can be more exploratory in response to the brief with the condition that we will maintain the budget. We also propose a discounted architectural fee if the client is willing to offer us more of a say in the design."

The result is a tiny, 538-square-foot studio—Stefanescu says it’s "like a child’s drawing of a house"—that cantilevers out from a sloped site in the garden to perch atop a boulder. To reduce costs, the architect looked to utilitarian buildings and traditional holiday cabins in Norway. "We tried to keep the construction and material use simple," he explains. "It is very matter-of-fact and everything is exposed and connected."

The studio may hark back to the bare-bones construction of old Norwegian cabins, but it’s made from cross-laminated timber (CLT), a thoroughly contemporary material. A-Works prefabricated CLT panels off-site to reduce construction time and cost, and the firm carefully crafted the junctions between various elements to elevate the utilitarian palette.