House of the Governor: Apartment Building in Gothenburg

At the Qvillestaden apartment building, Bornstein Lyckefors have reinterpreted a genuine Gothenburg building type, namely the so-called landshövdingehus (literally governor’s house) that marks the old dockworkers’ district at Herkulesgatan. The houses concerned come in the form of a perimeter block, three to four storeys high, with a ground floor in concrete and higher ones with cladding in timber. The building type stems from the early 20th century, but since then the wooden sidings on many of the facades have been replaced by zinc sheet metal in differing colours.

Qvillestaden is two storeys higher than its historical neighbours but otherwise follows their example in many details. As it is close to the port, the ground floor is built of watertight concrete faced in brick, while the regularly articulated upper storeys are timber-framed and clad in zinc sheet in dark red, anthracite and slate hues. Balconies that vary in subtle ways from one segment of the block to the other open up the apartments to the street. Altogether the residential complex offers 90 apartments ranging in size between 1.5 to 4 rooms, including a number of multi-storey maisonettes.

The courtyard, located one storey above ground-level to accommodate the parking garage and storage and technical equipment rooms, is completely different, with wood visible all around. The walls, exterior access staircases and railings on the long outdoor corridors are all faced in heat-treated pinewood slats. Numerous projections and recesses give the façades a livelier look than the more restrained streetside elevations.

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Landscape architecture: Sydväst