Micro houses

Small houses to sleep in, out in nature, close to the power station. Each one is a bedroom rather than a cabin.

The idea is a simple life close to nature. A small room of your own to sleep, think and work in, and everything else shared: the kitchen, the machine hall, the fire, the people around the table. What do you really need, and what can you leave behind?

We build with reclaimed materials, but not at any cost. Each house explores what is possible with what is at hand: roof boards from a demolition, timber elements from an office. Finding out what works, and what doesn't, is part of the project.

Every house gets its own character. It is shaped for its site, but built to be moved, so it can find a new place when needs change.

We want to build more houses and learn as we go: which materials can be reused, how much they weigh, how well they keep the heat, how they meet the building rules. In time the micro houses may become a concept of their own, built for others too.

Micro house no. 1

Sleeping house with roof terrace

The micro house in summer, roof terrace under the birch

The first micro house, built almost entirely from reclaimed materials. Only the studs and the insulation are new.

The walls are plank-laft: tongue-and-groove roof boards saved from a demolition, stacked like logs and locked together at the corners. The black spots are traces of the tar paper that once covered them, and of all the nails that held it. Every board had to be fitted by hand to make it line up. The floor and ceiling are old boards that still carry layers of paint in many colours.

There are two roofs: a flat one on top for the terrace, and a sloping one inside that leads the rain out through the back wall.

It was built to fit one of the tall transformer bays in the facade of the power station. The house is movable: it has since been lifted out with a wheel loader, served as a DJ booth on the roof during Festafest, and now stands on its own by the power station.

3D drawing of the micro house: walls of stacked boards, stair to the roof terrace
The power station facade with the micro house in the first bay
The finished micro house in the transformer bay, steel doors open
Floor frame in the empty transformer bay
Floor insulated and covered
Old painted boards laid as the floor
The frame and walls going up
Looking at the frame from the stack of reclaimed boards
View from inside towards the river
Corner of the floor and walls
Ceiling of old painted boards
The stair up to the roof terrace
Reflection in the glass front

Design: Anders · Build: Anders and Jesper · 2023

Micro house no. 2

Sleeping house in solid timber

The solid timber stair and work booth in the office at Krux, in black and white

The second micro house starts as an office. Its walls, floors and stair are solid timber (CLT) elements that Troll Arkitektur designed for their own office at Krux. The office is now taken down, and the elements will be used again at Festa.

The photos show the elements as they stood in the office: a stair that is also a shelf, a work booth and a loft. This winter they will be put together again, in a new shape, as a sleeping house for visiting artists and guests.

There are two possible sites: between the trees by the river, or on the edge of the old foundation, with a shared space between the houses.

The shelves emptied during the dismantling. Photo: Troll Arkitektur
Plan: retreat houses between the trees and the river
Plan: two houses on the edge of the old foundation, with a shared area between them

Original design and materials: Troll Arkitektur, with thanks · Build: winter 2026/27

Forest floor

A platform among the trees

A white dog standing on the forest floor platform among the trees, autumn

Not a house, just a floor in the forest. A simple platform among the birches and pines, lifted off the ground on steel feet set in the rock. A place to sit and watch the river between the trees, or to sleep a night outside.

The platform seen from below, among birches and a tall pine
The frame of the platform during the build, with the river behind the trees

Design and build: Anders and Gisle

Sauna

A movable sauna, to be built with architecture students from Finland

A small sauna by the river, to be designed and built by a group of architecture students from Aalto University in Finland. Like the micro houses, it will be made mostly from reclaimed materials, from what is at hand on the site and the farm. It will be shaped for this place, the power station, the forest and the river, and built to be movable. Heated by a wood stove.

Design and build: Lukas, Veikko, Richard and Ziggy · June 2027