The lakefront AM House unfolds in the forests outside Borlänge, Sweden as a study in quiet monumentality—a private villa that, despite its scale compared to what one would expect in such an area, feels at once deeply rooted in its landscape and finely attuned to contemporary living. Conceived as a composition of low, horizontal planes and carefully stacked volumes, the house balances heft and lightness with unusual assurance: broad rooflines extend into the site like protective canopies, while expansive glazing dissolves the boundary between interior life and the surrounding pines. What distinguishes the project is the way its material language balances the design and amplifies the atmosphere of retreat. Dark metal detailing, rough timber cladding, concrete and a weighty stone base give the house a tactile, grounded presence, allowing it to sit naturally within the rugged Swedish setting rather than merely occupy it. The architecture appears to step with the terrain, opening onto terraces, decks and long views toward the water, so that the experience of the house is inseparable from the topography around it. We wanted to create a home shaped as much by outlook, light and seasonality as by enclosure alone. There is also a cinematic quality to the composition. From the approach, the house reads as restrained and protective, with layered facades and sheltered thresholds; from the landscape side, it opens dramatically into glass, platforms and generous outdoor living spaces. That contrast between privacy and openness gives the project its tension and elegance. AM House does not pursue spectacle in an obvious way. Instead, it offers a more sophisticated luxury: immersion in nature, precision in proportion, and a calm, deeply considered relationship between architecture and place.

Set high above the Ligurian coast with spectacular views of the mediterranean sea, the Alassio Hills building is conceived as a quiet negotiation between the cultivated landscape and the town’s layered architectural memory. The apartment building is embedded into a steep site where terraces, retaining walls, and garden rooms are as much a part of the local vernacular as tiled roofs and pale stone façades in the villages below. From the outset, we wanted the architecture to feel of this place—not as an imported object, but as an evolution of what already exists: the agrarian logic of the hillside, the measured rhythm of Mediterranean living, and the distinct relationship between country, city, and sea that defines the Italian Riviera. Alassio’s urban life sits close to the shoreline, but the hills immediately behind it belong to a different tempo—olive groves, cypress silhouettes, dry-stone walls, and long views that unfold in layers. Our ambition was to let the building participate in that topography: to “arrive” as a series of terraces rather than a single gesture, and to read as something shaped by the slope as much as by program. The massing follows this idea of stratification. Broad horizontal planes step with the terrain, forming generous outdoor rooms—loggias, balconies, and roof terraces—that extend domestic life outward into the landscape. Rather than framing the view as a single panoramic spectacle, the building offers a sequence of perspectives: toward the sea, across the hillside gardens, and back to the textured rooftops and stone structures that stitch the region together. In doing so, the project adopts a familiar Ligurian attitude—architecture as an intermediary between interior and exterior, shelter and openness—while expressing it through a contemporary clarity and precision. Materially, the building is anchored by travertine—chosen not only for its timeless tactile quality, but for its deep cultural resonance within Italy. Travertine carries an unmistakable association with Italian architecture across centuries; it is a stone that has shaped Rome’s monumental legacy and continues to embody a sense of permanence and quiet authority. In the Alassio Hills building, we use travertine as a unifying envelope: it gives the façades a soft mineral luminosity that responds to the bright coastal light, while also lending the volumes an almost geological presence—like a continuation of the stone terraces and retaining walls that define the hillside. This is where the project’s balance of “traditional” and “exclusive” becomes most important to us. We were never interested in literal imitation of historic forms; instead, we aimed for an architectural familiarity achieved through proportion, material honesty, and a respectful relationship to the landscape. The building’s contemporary character is expressed through its restrained detailing, expansive glazing, and the way outdoor spaces are carved out as inhabited thresholds. Glass balustrades and large openings lighten the mass, allowing the architecture to feel both grounded and airy—solid where it meets the slope, and increasingly open where it meets the horizon. The surrounding landscape is not treated as decoration, but as an architectural counterpart. Steep plots can be challenging, yet in Liguria they are also an invitation: the terrain naturally suggests terracing, planting, and the creation of outdoor “rooms” that follow the hillside’s logic. Here, the building is enveloped by layered gardens—an inhabited terrain of steps, stone, and vegetation—so that from many angles the architecture appears to emerge from the landscape rather than sit on top of it. In the context of Alassio—where the life of the town meets the slower rhythms of the countryside— The Alassio Hills building is meant to be read as a composed backdrop to everyday living: discreet, enduring, and finely made. It belongs to the hillside through its terraced stance and mineral palette, and it belongs to the contemporary moment through its openness, precision, and quietly luxurious calm. It is, for us, a project about continuity: extending the language of the place without nostalgia, and offering a modern way of inhabiting the Italian Riviera that feels both rooted and effortless.