MURMAN ARKITEKTER 302 SWEDEN

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1 MURMAN ARKITEKTER Hans Murman, who founded Murman Arkitekter in i 985, recalls that his big break came in the late 8os with the commission to create ski lodges for the Swedish resort Ramundbergets fjällby. That client led to another job for the downtown Stockholm shopping center Sturegallerian. Both designs received honors, and thereafter the firm grew to 2.4 employees and has since completed approximately 500 projects. Murman Arkitekter integrates architectural and interior design work, and indeed, some of its most memorable projects feature colors or environmental graphics that enhance architectural elements, or formal examinations of straight and curvilinear lines that inform an interior plan. How has globalization affected your practice? We strive to create structures and spaces with strong individual iden tities. Like people, buildings derive much of their identity from their physical surroundings and social context. Thus regional culture and spatial conditions are crucial, which ever way one chooses to respond to them. Do you find your practice increasingly involved in inter disciplinary work? We seek projects that push us into un tested arenas because that keeps us on our toes in a way that benefits both ourselves and our clients; and we main tain a mix of project sizes and building types because it constantly teaches us new solutions. We also believe strongly in a synthesis between the building, iis interioi and its surroundings, and consequently we try to maintain a grasp on all associated disciplines first and foremost architecture and interior design, but landscape design and planning as well. Do you strive to design contemporary architecture? We attempt to design architecture that responds as directly as possible to its context and function, and as such it is neither deliberately timeless nor quite contemporary. It is shaped by its surroundings and iis uses, both of which have their traditions but are simultaneously in flux. Do you practice stewardship toward community? We designed an annex for the first Swan eco-hotel in Sweden, and we are very much focused on our practice s and its designs impact op the environment. What is modern architecture? Modern architecture always questions tradition, based on an analysis of human needs and behavior. Modern architecture is democratic, acces sible. In light of your previous answers, how do you define success? Professionally speaking, by meeting or surpassing expectations on budget and on time. Success is also having your analyses and intuition validated by those using a space. In this respect failure can be equally illuminating. 302 SWEDEN

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4 4- Previous page and this spread: Juniper House, private, zoo6-1 - fr Location: Gotland, Sweden Building area: 50 m2 Site: 1,000 m2 Time to build: 2 years Type of construction: Wood frame construction with a polyester fabric secondary facade. 1_ The Juniper House is a disappearing act. Em ploying a technique developed for the Stock holm conference rooms of Boston Consulting Group, images of the site s juniper shrubs were printed on a textile that wraps the small building appeasing concerned neighbors and conservative legislators. The fabric is almost opaque in most daylight conditions, presenting an impenetrable juniper wall, but when night falls the wall dissolves as interior lights shine from behind concealed windows. This sophist icated yet deliberately simple building was built almost entirely by the architects and friends. Plan: i Entrance, z Kitchen, Bedroom, Sleeping alcove, Outdoor Showei 6 Terrace F1 6 MURMAN ARKITEKTER 305

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6 moting Smi language, culture, and industry. Badjneapmi is inspired by the Lvvo, a round tent originally covered in reindeer skins. Here, that basic form is stretched into a ridged, crescent-like shape that creates a semi-enclosed courtyard entrance. This space faces the Kiirunavaara mountain and the distant Kebnekaise massif and it is punctuated by an open fireplace, emphasizing the importance of the hearth in Smi society. In that acknow ledgment of tradition, the building s overall shape evokes the image of a moon, a snowdrift, This spread: Sametinget, the Swedish Sdmi parliament, The National Property Board SFv, z006 competition win This winning submission to the international architectural competition for a new Swedish Smi parliament building is called Badjneap mi. This Sami word for awakening signifies Swedish recognition of the rights of these mdi genous trans-scandinavian people, as the build ing will house Sametinget, a government agency, and a partly elected assembly charged with pro. 1 i. i,,. d-, :- :.r Location: Kiruna, Sweden Building area: 4,600 m2 Type of construction: Wood frame with glass and-wood facade. s.* *i7. i. 4j.*1 : -, a mountain, or a leaping salmon. Politically, the most powerful visual analog is that one com paring the architecture to the image of an eye as it is opening: The glazed southwestern con cave facade has a recessed wooden secondary facade, while the northeastern convex facade is covered in large-scale glulam wood shingles.. Iv / -//. 1 )-4/ 7 r _ , *.. 7 7,f MURMAN ARKITEKTER 307

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8 ;I_ ; al This spread: Pfizer Swedish Headquarters, Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company, 2005 The Pfizer Headquarters was the first office in the Silverdal development, billed as the Modern Garden City, and adapted a large, efficient office building to the semi-rural scale: The volume steps down to face a forest stand in the east, while the taller western portion creates a noise barnet from rail and highway traffic. An undulating facade fashions the site into a series of courtyards, providing daylight to each workspace; this move also creates an interior hierarchy of formal workspaces and informal common and circulatory areas. The interior offers a warm atmosphere dom inated by wood surfaces and bright colors, with railings and wall panels decorated in anatomic ally derived patterns. Moreover, the immediate vicinity of the building has been styled after the Scandinavian wilderness, with pine trees, granite slabs, a mirror pond, and siste flooring that extends from the grounds into the lobby. Location: Sollentuna, Sweden Building area: 31,400 m2 Site: 7,300 m2 Time to build: z years Type of construction: Prefabricated concrete construction. MURMAN ARKITEKTER 309