A Mutually Beneficial Relationship – Making space for the next generation The client’s house was built in the early 1960s and is located in the heart of a small town next to the old town hall and an idyllic little river. The young couple lived in an 80 m2 flat on the top floor of their tile-clad building which houses both family and their longstanding hairdressing business. The brief was for more space and for the little north-facing balcony to be supplemented with a big roof garden and winter garden thus providing lots more light. Architects FloSundK rebuilt the flat and gave the roof a new add-on extension. The wall between the former living room and kitchen was demolished to create a new spacious room containing a lightweight steel stairway, which also functions as skylight. The roof extension is divided into 2 boxes: the “living- box” and the “wintergarden-box”. Because the limited budget ruled out changing the existing elevation, FloSundK used the house as base and perched the new rooms on top. The boxes are intentionally not in sync with the geometry and materials of the original structure, which is covered in light blue and cream-coloured tiles. To save time, both boxes were built as prefabricated timberframe constructions, whilst the green firewall facing the neighbours’ property is a pre-cast concrete element, which was screwed onto the existing concrete-roof. Distinct materials reflect the different functions of the roof boxes: the “noble” livingbox is covered with dark grey chipboard, whereas the “natural” winter-garden-box is covered in untreated zinc-plates that will take on their own natural patina with age. In a symbiosis-like interaction the already existing building and its extension are associated with one another in a mutually beneficial relationship.