Innovative homes for people, the planet, and the future

At Asumma, we are on a long-term mission to make beautiful, sustainable housing affordable for everyone. We believe that high-quality homes are the cornerstone of a healthy society, and we are bringing a rich wealth of research and innovation to their design. From future-proofing homes for extreme weather, to considering their long-term impact on the Earth, Asumma aims to advance homes and their construction for the better. 

Advanced solutions to the home’s language of its own 

Asumma’s house research, design, and engineering teams bring significant international and large-scale experiences to our work. In complex projects like museums, hospitals, libraries, and schools, there is often a higher level of technical consideration. All of this knowledge is applied to Asumma’s house design — for the ultimate benefit of its inhabitants. We have significant understanding into what novel technologies can be utilized for a home, and how to make a space that is not only pleasant for living, but also technologically-advanced and high-functioning. 

Furthermore, our global experience lends itself to more critical thinking. Each geography exhibits its own set of features that make a house a home. What materials are used? And how? What methods are used? And why? Different locations, different homes, different architectural environments, different cultures, different outcomes. At Asumma, we bring this knowledge to bear on our house design. What works best? How can we improve upon this? What can we cherry-pick from other places? And how can we advance these traditions? We engage in deep critical thinking in order to build better. 

Finally, the home has a language of its own. There is something inherent and precious in a living environment that is much different than any other sort of building. It is not a hotel. Not an office. Not a hospital. Not a public space. There is a much different level of privacy inherent in one’s home. As such, it must feel more personal. It must feel soft. At Asumma, our timber architecture strives to make a dwelling space that is intimate and appropriately enveloping. We bring our breadth and depth of research, architecture, and engineering intelligence to manifest this idea to its fullest fruition.

Designing for extreme weather helps future-proof Asumma homes 

Although we are ultimately building homes across all of Europe, Asumma is founded in the Nordics. In the far north, weather has a big impact on architecture. The harsh winter weather affects buildings in different ways here. Much of this relates to water, ice, and humidity. In such a challenging environment, we pay critical attention to the impact of water and moisture on Asumma’s house design. We aim to create the healthiest, safest indoor environments for living, This means making structures that are safe in terms of water control, enabling us to create the best indoor air quality possible. This thinking is baked into every Asumma home, no matter where it will ultimately be built — and this is a benefit for every homeowner. 

Another critical factor in the north is temperature variability. Annually, our temperatures range from -30°C to +30°C. This temperature scale is huge, versus many other environments. And this has a big impact on the energy economy of a house. At Asumma, we take care to insulate the indoor and outdoor space from the temperatures at hand. We are also specialists in bioclimatic design, energy efficiency, airflows in and out, healthy ventilation, energy used to heat ventilation, as well as conservation and efficiency of energy use. This includes the use of solar energy, and how we harness both active and passive solar energy, for instance, from the photovoltaic panels on the roof or heat masses in the house. We consider questions, such as: Where are the windows, and how does this impact energy use? In which direction do the windows face in relation to the sun? Or the prevailing winds on the plot. 

In this way, our Nordic environmental considerations challenge us to make houses with extra attention that are ultimately better in any climate anywhere, even those with less temperature variability. As extreme weather unfortunately becomes more commonplace, given our current climate crisis, Asumma aims to build homes that can serve as a bulwark against an uncertain future.  

Life-cycle thinking core to Asumma house design

Sustainability is a complex idea. What is sustainable? What does it even mean? One of the most important considerations in our house design, delivery, and dwelling is its impact on systems. When designing a house, we think about its impact on natural systems and human systems. How does this affect plants? Animals? Water systems? When a house is built, where do the materials come from? What is their impact? How does the house last over hundreds of years? When the house takes a new form, where do the materials go? 

We design so that the impact of these materials on the environment is as positive as possible, with as little negative impact as possible, and that the house is — of course — as durable as possible. When the house reaches the end of its lifetime, it was designed so that the parts can be reused and recycled. Furthermore, we design with as little waste as possible. Waste reduction is a concept that should be more prevalent in design, construction, and our habitat. In no other system on our planet, with the exception of our human economy, is there waste. Nature has its own means of addressing waste. Asumma wants to address our species’ waste problem. We want to help transform the construction industry, which currently unfortunately contributes up to 15% of greenhouse gases globally. 

The challenge of improving housing requires solving a series of problems, and understanding the house from the most holistic perspective possible. At Asumma, we are employing a broad set of tools to tackle home-building — considering its impact on people, the planet, and the future. 

Are you interested in building a new house on your plot?  Learn about Asumma's carbon-neutral, timber design homes here.