It’s nice to be able to reflect the environment in the facade

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Linda Samuelsson is an architect and interior designer. She has built two private timber houses, with sights set on a third, and her dream is to specialise in the material. SCA Wood Magazine asked her to cast her eye over the next-generation timber panelling and give her impressions.

An architect has much to consider aside from the client when it comes to a building’s appearance: building permits, detailed development plans, nearby buildings and, not least, the surrounding environment.

Portrait of Linda Samuelsson. — Linda Samuelsson runs the Nokori interior design agency and is an advocate for sustainable architecture and design. She is also part of Boning Studio, which gathers expertise in architecture, design and build, planning applications, interior design and project management.

“When you draw something, it is first and foremost the location that sets the conditions for the design. It’s nice to be able to reflect the environment in the facade,” says Linda Samuelsson of interior design agency Nokori.

She looks through the samples of SCA Wood’s five new exterior panels, which offer a range of design languages for timber facades. She is adamant that innovation need not mean doing something spectacular, but rather providing new possibilities, not least aesthetically.

“Modern timber panels have given us new tools for exterior expression, allowing us to work with so much more than colours,” she says.

“Take Alces, for example. It has a type of planing that makes me think of woodwork at school. It feels like traditional handicraft in a new form. I can see that cladding on a house close to the water, the sunlight reflecting from the water onto the facade.”

Samuelsson highlights wood as a more sustainable building material than many of the alternatives, and notes that this type of panel may make it easier for many people to choose wood.

“Cladding such as Dama or SCA Cladding Shingles can imitate other materials, making it possible to create an impression that is not immediately associated with wood, while still working with wood! I see a new market opening up for timber cladding and I think that more people will be willing to express themselves more boldly,” says Samuelsson.