The peanut in Mandal's archipelago began as winter storage for kayaks - and ended up as a gallery.

"We needed a storage room for kayaks and outdoor furniture so that we didn't have to enter the cabin in the winter. We thought that such a building must be located where we least want to be on the site - i.e. in the thick undergrowth with a solid compost," says Leif D. Houck. He is an architect and partner at Spinn arkitekter and associate professor at NMBU.

The cabin at Hekkholmen has been in the family's possession for generations. It was Leif's grandmother and her three sisters who inherited the islet - a quarter each.

"Here there was an opportunity to experiment and do things we haven't done before. We were four architects from Spinn who went to Mandal, and rowed out to the islet," says Leif. With them on the trip they had pipes that could be bent, ropes and sticks, and a case of beer. They set about investigating how the stall could be in 1:1.

Some premises were laid down: "No trees should be removed, the building should be climbable and become an extended outdoor play area for children," says Leif. He thinks back to his time as a child. "There used to be a prominent, large rock on the islet that you could climb up to get a view, but it is now built into a cabin." The children needed a new viewing stone.

Both convex and concave
Eventually the project took shape and a building permit and exemption from the ban on building in the beach zone was applied for. When the municipality and the local newspaper visited, Leif explained that the building should look like a wooden rock, built of six-centimetre-thick hexagons in solid wood, and be a building like no other anywhere in the world. The journalist called the building a peanut igloo. Thus the nickname became the Peanut.

Leif had previous experience. In 2015, Spinn designed a cabin for the touring team in Hammerfest. The hiking hut was designed in collaboration with Format Engineers from England. Three years later, the tour team built the cabin using volunteer work. This cabin formed the basis for thinking about how the kayak shed on Hekkholmen could be. Spinn and Format collaborated again, and this time it was even more advanced. Where the cabin in Hammerfest had a simpler igloo shape, the new cabin got a doubly curved shape that is both convex and concave.

Built on hard work
In 2020, 88 different hexagons, sawed out with the help of a robot in Germany, came to Mandal. The construction was set up in two days by a group of four students from NMBU, a contractor and Leif as chef and host. Leif has spent the following summers tarring the Peanøtten and sprinkling on shell sand.

"When the peanut was finished, it became clear that the room had a power of its own. It gave a good peace and had a view towards the sunset. It could well be a kayak shed in the winter, but in the summer this could be a gallery!”

In the summer of 2022, Leif exhibited watercolors depicting Russian and Ukrainian ballet dancers and the war in Ukraine exhibited on opposite sides of the room. Thus Peanøtten Gallery was established.

The peanut is the only one of its kind in Norway, and perhaps in the world.