A Swedish Architect Crafts a Flexible Home Fine-Tuned for Her Musical Family

As most design fans know, Le Corbusier once declared that "a house is a machine for living in." But the home that architect Pernilla Wåhlin Norén created for her family of seven (eight including their black Labrador, Lovis) in Borlänge, Sweden, is more like an instrument.

That’s how Pernilla describes it, at least. It’s finely tuned to the needs of her musical family: Her husband, Gustaf, is a songwriter, music teacher, and performer, and their kids Josef (15), Edith (13), Bror (11), and Salka (8) each play at least one instrument, while Moses (5) likes to sing. Pernilla wanted to design a home that could adapt over time as the pitch of her family, so to speak, changes. So she prioritized a simple, rational layout with flexible living spaces spread across two levels of an L-shaped structure.

The plywood interiors and polished cement floors are intentionally bare to allow a blank canvas for all kinds of activities, like Pernilla’s weaving or the family’s candle-making projects. The furniture, decor, and other impermanent fixtures—an array of musical instruments, a large wooden loom, and tools for whatever craft a given family member is working on at the moment—are constantly being rearranged. Shifting patterns move across them, cast by natural light that passes through tall windows that line the walls on the inner side of the building. Outside, these windows look like the sharps and flats on a silvery spruce keyboard running across the facades. But a piano wasn’t Pernilla’s inspiration for the window design—the surrounding forest was.

Pernilla has a strong connection to this part of central Sweden, known for its dense timberlands, wide rivers, and traditional handicrafts, like wood carving. It’s where Pernilla and her husband grew up and where she now works as an architect for the City of Borlänge after forging her career in Stockholm.

"When you’re inside, looking at the windows divided by thin walls is like seeing the sun through the tree trunks," says Pernilla. The rigidity of the exterior is broken where the two wings meet by a pine shingle–clad section that adds an unexpected jolt to the design. The shingles pay homage to Pernilla’s love of wood and local craftsmanship and to the cladding of nearby Ornässtugan, a medieval guesthouse thought to be the scene of a dramatic escape by eventual Swedish king Gustav Vasa roughly 500 years ago.