Imagine a small red cottage in the Swedish countryside. Quaint, familiar, almost storybook. Now imagine that same house quietly lifting twenty feet into the air as floodwaters rush in below.
That’s the surreal brilliance of the Lift House, a concept from Ulf Mejergren Architects, now featured in ArkDes’s Beredd (Ready) exhibition in Stockholm.
What looks like a children’s drawing of home becomes an act of resilience, an a statement about our changing climate, and rising coastal waters.
The Lift House sits on a massive scissor lift, its bold red silhouette both charming and defiant.
When danger approaches, the house simply rises above the chaos. No panic or need for frantic sandbagging.
We appreciate this architecture as adaptation.
UMA calls it a study in “temporary retreat,” an alternative to the old binaries of fight or flee.
Now, this is clearly just a demonstration.
From afar, the Lift House looks like a traditional Scandinavian cabin with red siding, pitched roof, white trim.
But the closer you look, the more it unravels that illusion. The chimney is cut from MDF. The interiors are stripped to essentials. The entire structure is a study in efficiency, designed to stay under a strict 227-kilogram weight limit of the scissor lift.
To put this into use for a full-weight cabin or home would take some serious engineering.
Images © Copyright Ulf Mejergren.
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