fold

Architecture and interiors, Copenhagen.

Work House

The Stable

Stege, Møn. 2021. Built.

A pale pitched-roof house with a large triangular glazed gable, set on a grassy rise among dark cypress trees.

The glazed gable is where the hay hatch used to be. The rest of the front is as it was.

The stable had stood empty for thirty years, with half its floor gone and its roof open to the weather. The family wanted to live in it without making it look like anything else. We rebuilt only what had failed.

What we found

The stable was built in 1887 of brick and local fieldstone, with a beam floor over the stalls and a hay loft. The roof had gone at the western end and the floor of the loft was rotten, but the walls and the main beams were sound.

We spent the first month measuring and photographing every beam. The drawings show 41 of them, each numbered, and the builder was given the numbers.

Pale timber roof trusses and rafters seen from below against a deep blue sky, in a strong diagonal.
A new roof truss over the sitting room, in glue-laminated pine, cut to repeat the old pattern of the rafters.

What we kept

The brick walls were repointed and left raw inside. The oak beams were cleaned, not planed. Where a beam had to be replaced the new one is oak from the same farm, cut to the old section, and it has a small brass tag so that visitors can find the join.

The stable floor, laid with granite setts, stayed in the entrance hall. The grooves for the drains cross it and are now where the umbrellas stand.

What we added

A stair in oak and steel, one new roof, and the glazed gable. The stair rises in the middle of the plan and is the only thing in the house that is clearly new. We chose its position so that every room is reached across one flight.

The glass is set well back from the face of the gable, so that from the front the hay hatch still reads as an opening in a wall.

Living in it

The house is heated by a ground source heat pump through the old floor, which is now insulated from below. The family say they notice the thickness of the walls most in August, when the rooms stay cool until evening.

Before and after

A dining room with exposed oak beams, a white stair behind, a long oak table with a leather bench and a polished wooden floor.
A ruined room with peeling green plaster, a tall window, a broken timber floor and fallen debris.
The old stalls, now the dining room. Before: Before. The floor was gone in the middle and the plaster had come away to the brick. After: After. The beams are the originals. The floor is new oak laid on the old joist lines.

Drawings

Plan of The Stable Ground floor plan, with the glazed gable to the west. Scale 1 to 100. Rooms: Kitchen and dining, Hall and stair, Sitting room, Bedroom, Bath. Kitchen and dining 68 m² Hall and stair 26 m² Sitting room 43 m² Bedroom 17 m² Bath 17 m² 20 m 8.5 m 5 m N
Ground floor plan, with the glazed gable to the west. Scale 1 to 100.
Cross section of The Stable Cross section through the hall and stair, looking west. Scale 1 to 100. The roof is a gable, with the eave at 3 metres and the highest point at 6.9 metres. Levels: Ground floor, First floor. Ground floor 0 m First floor 3.1 m Span 8.5 m Eave 3 m Ridge 6.9 m
Cross section through the hall and stair, looking west. Scale 1 to 100.

Materials

What the building is made of, where each material is used, and who supplied it.

  • Close photograph of pale oak veneer with a fine straight grain.

    Oak

    Beams, floors, the stair and the table

    Ravnkilde Sawmill

  • Close photograph of a warm beige plastered wall with a soft hand-finished texture.

    Lime plaster

    Walls that were not left as brick

    Skovlunde Kalk

  • Close photograph of a brushed brass surface in a muted gold tone.

    Brass

    Beam tags and ironmongery

    Brøndum Messing

  • Close photograph of coarse, undyed linen cloth with a visible weave.

    Linen

    Curtains on the gable

    Lerche Weavers

Credits

Architect
Fold
Structure
Holm Ingeniører
Conservation advice
Møns Bygningsbevaring
Builder
Tre Mand Tømrer
Bricklaying
Murermester Lund
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