New wooden building for Sundbyberg Cemetery is now complete.
The Cemetery Administration of Sundbyberg needed more space at the cemetery to expand their work: offices, meeting rooms, and staff locker rooms as well as space for machines and a workshop. The location in the park-like cemetery demanded a building that wouldn’t call too much attention to itself and would preserve the garden character of the site.
“Wood is the most competent construction material we have,” says Gert Wingårdh, “and the building for the cemetery is the most sophisticated wood-framed building we’ve ever done. But wood also needs to be protected. That’s whey we’ve clad it in the material that is forever—glass.”
Glass and wood are a marriage made in heaven—they bring out the best in each other. The green glass reflects the surrounding vegetation, integrating the building into the garden spaces framed by the cemetery’s hedges. The flat roofs are planted with sedum. It is clearly a green building.
The building is made from a very limited palette of materials. First there is cross-laminated timber, or CLT. Gluing together many layers of wood with the fibers oriented in different directions produces an extremely stable sheet material. It is the same technique used in plywood, except that these sheets are so big and thick that they can be used to make entire solid walls. These prefabricated wall panels are manufactured in Lithuania with a precision that allows them to be assembled quickly. The protective layer of glass that wraps the building came from the same supplier, which ensured a smooth process. Each panel of glass is equipped with hooks that fit into a track in the rake of the roof. The gray-green color is a foil wrapping on the back of the glass.
On the interior of the rooms, the surface of the wall panels was also delivered pre-finished, so all of the walls are solid wood. The ceilings are predominantly wood, as are most of the floors. Where wear and tear are expected to be greatest, however, we find instead the characteristic green of Kolmård marble. In addition to the wood, marble, and glass, the interior features buff-colored leather, and the exterior rust-resistant steel and concrete. All of the wood on the interior is treated with hard wax oil.
The building’s simplicity is a response to the dual demands that it remain reserved and yet take care of its visitors. The building is intended to subordinate itself to the cemetery, but at the same time be welcoming for those who seek comfort and counsel in their grief. That ambition is reflected in the siting of the building, which follows the orthogonal pattern of hedges on the site, and in the height, which is limited to allow the trees to dominate the landscape. The interior design is also characterized by restraint. The modern wood construction technique in which computer-guided tools manufacture components with extreme precision made it possible to create simple solutions that in the past would have required expensive hand craftsmanship. The attachment of the windows directly to the wall panels is but one example.
