Island Life – revisited

Finnish designers Aleksi Hautamaki and Milla Selkimaki have built a self-sufficient summer house on the five-acre island they own (as you do) on the edge of Finland’s Archipelago National Park. Called Project Ö, after the Swedish word for island, two cabins on the site house living spaces and bedrooms, as well as a workshop and sauna.
In order to be completely self-sufficient, the cabins source their energy from roof-mounted solar panels, and use filtered sea water for drainage, sinks and toilets which makes me wonder why we don’t employ such solutions in Australian beachside homes.
Hot running water is produced as a by-product of the sauna’s stove, and the same system provides heating to the floors of the Project Ö cabins. The vision was to have all things necessary with as little space as possible. All individual spaces have been designed to be as compact as they can be without compromising the functionality and comfort.
Designed to “pay tribute to traditional Finnish Archipelago aesthetics”, the simple cabins are clad in vertical wooden planks, and topped with gabled roofs, with long eaves and extended gutters.
Large windows look out in every direction from the cabins, allowing views both out to sea and back towards the island itself.