The Villa G is a white wood-clad structure that manages to be both sculptural and hard-edged, rising up above the sand dunes and scrubs of Hjellestad, just outside Bergen. Canadian architect Todd Saunders has managed to combine traditional local building materials like wooden cladding with a modernist edge, ensuring the new villa stands apart from its rather more ersatz neighbours. From the outside, Villa G is an elegant exercise in sculptural massing. The house is a happy blend of the high tech and the traditional, with frameless glass walls serving as room dividers in the master bedroom and balustrades for the internal staircase, combined with randomly patterned wooden cladding on the exterior. The staircase itself is formed from a solid piece of folded galvanised steel; weighing nearly 1 tonne, it had to be craned into the house through the rooflight.
