One & All

Puzzled together: in extending their house, built in 1943, a pair of Danish architects pulled off an excitingly seamless feat.

In the kitchen, which has a step leading directly into the living room next to it, the homeowners combined a Hay dining table with leather chairs from Arper. They discovered the vintage wicker chair in the foreground at a flea market. Morten Holtum

It's as if two worlds have become one. A melange of the old core and a new addition - so organic that it's hard to tell what's actually left of today and what's left of the summer cottage built in 1943.

The design for their new home was created ten years ago now, when the two architects Mette and Martin Wienberg were enjoying parental leave with their son Oscar. An 86-square-meter cottage was to be transformed into a modern home more than twice its size, but not simply by adding a detached annex.

In the kitchen, which has a step leading directly into the living room next to it, the homeowners combined a Hay dining table with leather chairs from Arper. They discovered the vintage wicker chair in the foreground at a flea market.

A modest, one-story L from 1943 was transformed by the Wienbergs' two additions into an ensemble enclosed around a small patio, above in the model. Where old and new merge, one can hardly see the building today, which has grown by more than twice its original size.

"The old building consisted of many tiny rooms. To merely expand it with a large, open space would have made the historic part look like a stunted appendage," explains Mette Wienberg. Instead, the original building, together with the two added wings, now encloses a small courtyard that forms the new center of the ensemble. The open-plan kitchen is located in one of the extensions, while the actual living room adjoins it in the other. Here there is another floor that towers over the rest of the one-story house like a small tower.

A simple summer house was thus transformed into an elegant property with 186 square meters of living space that meets all the needs of a family of three - and thrives on the confident play with finely tuned and artfully crafted materials and details. "It was particularly important to us that the connection between old and new succeeds," emphasizes Mette Wienberg, who has always been fascinated by fabrics, textures and the interplay of different materials. "When I start a new project," she explains, "I usually spend a long time looking at the materials before I design anything."

"When I start on a new project, the materials always come first. Only then comes the design."

The Wienbergs dressed the living room in oiled oak plywood; only the floor is concrete screed. The wicker pouf is from House Doctor, and leather mats on the built-ins serve as the sofa. The stairs lead to the TV room on the second floor.

On the second floor above the living room, the Wienbergs brought a TV room with a view of the greenery and Samsung's "Serif TV", designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, The pink armchair is by Hay, behind it is a painting by Danish author and painter Per Petri.

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