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A practice from each European country was asked to design a Houseboat for a housing fair in Malmo (Sweden). The brief is to design a prototypical small dwelling for two people.

Our interests are light, space and construction. Our aim, to design a house which has a spatial quality which we describe as a ‘thicket’. Implicit in this is the idea that the enclosure is experienced as a congruence of lines rather than as a clearing defined by surfaces. The thicket suggested an intertwining of lines which led us to an interest in the process of weaving.

The West of Ireland was visited to study the technique of building currachs; light fishing boats with basket-like frames supporting the tar and canvas hull. It was discovered that the locals now prefer inflatable rubber dinghies which are almost unsinkable and which can be kept in the water all winter without rotting. Our interest transferred to this new vernacular.

The Houseboat is a basket of woven carbon-fibre, containing inflatable elements at high and low levels. The lower range is for flotation. The translucent upper range forms the roof of the structure; the trapped argon gas is an integral part of the insulation of the house. By combining inflatable and woven elements, within the depth of the construction of the houseboat, we extend the concept of interdependence between contained and container. The container and the contents rely on each other for stability.

The house is divided into a sleeping zone and a single, large living space. An internal court concealing a private bath separates them. The living space has high-level storage rails that can be lowered into the room. They are reminiscent of the laundry drying racks high up in the kitchens of Edinburgh tenements. In this house, nothing is hidden away. The quality of the architecture comes from the accumulation of possessions.

You enter the Houseboat through a dense loggia of interwoven electronic elements that gather energy from the environment and reuse it. In summer, the solar panels power a small pump which draws water through copper coils hanging down into the bottom of the harbour. Here the water is always cold. It cools the water in the pipes. This circulates through the outside wall of the building. The principle works like the veins in your skin, carrying heat away through circulation.

In winter, the tiny amount of solar electricity is not needed for cooling. It is directed into the argon inflatable roof elements, which work like very low powered fluorescent fittings, glowing gently through the long winter nights.

The atmosphere of this house is deliberately northern. At the heart of our project is the delight of hiding in a hedge. There is no horizon or vista. Instead the world is experienced as tiny shifting fragments perceived through a maze of line. Light is dappled and shifting. The spatial sense is one of immersion in the dense substance of the house.