Wabi is Japanese for ”simple quietude”. In the word lies the concept for the perception of beauty. The opposite of gorgeous splendour, it suggests a modest beauty striving for something closer to nature than nature itself. Wabi detects beauty in non-materialistic, spiritual freedom.

Villa Wabi was an experimental urban villa placed in Sergels torg, Stockholm. Sergels torg is the central square of modern Stockholm; equivalent to London’s Piccadilly Circus or New York’s Time’s Square. Sergels torg is not just traffic junction for cars, or a node for subway and national railways but infamous for drug-trafficking, prostitution and crime. A single-family villa of approximately 60 sqm was placed in this urban chaos. The project showed that this was possible and served as a statement in the architectural and socio-material discussion.

The house was given a completely open plan where the interior consisted of freely placed units. Larger spaces intertwined with narrower passages to create a flowing spatiality. The result was a functional dwelling in all respects but also a refuge from outside stress and chaos; a place for contemplation and harmony – Wabi

Today Villa Wabi has been moved and re-erected on Torö Island, outside Nynäshamn in the south border of the Stockholm archipelago.