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Copenhagen & Oslo — est. 2009
Selected work 2019—2026
We design buildings that get better with age.
An architecture practice working across housing, cultural buildings and adaptive reuse.
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01 — Approach
We start with what is already on the site. Daylight, structure and the existing fabric decide most of the plan before we draw it. What we add is built from materials that are honest about their age — brick, timber, concrete left as it was cast.
0buildings completed
0architects and engineers
0national awards
0of work from returning clients
02 — Selected work
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03 — Services
How we work
01
Feasibility & site strategy
Before anyone draws a facade, we test what the site and the planning framework will actually carry — massing options, unit mix, daylight and cost per square metre, in one document you can take to a board.
- Massing studies
- Planning review
- Cost benchmarking
02
Architecture & detailing
Full design from concept through to construction drawings. We detail our own buildings — the junctions that decide how a facade looks in year fifteen are not handed to someone else.
- Concept to tender
- Facade detailing
- Site supervision
03
Adaptive reuse & retrofit
Silos, warehouses, post-war housing. We survey what stands, keep the structure where it makes sense, and bring the envelope up to current energy standards without erasing the building's history.
- Structural survey
- Energy retrofit
- Heritage consent
04
Interiors & furniture
Shared stairs, lobbies, kitchens and the fixed furniture that gets touched every day. Designed alongside the building rather than specified after handover.
- Common areas
- Joinery
- Lighting design
04 — Practice
Small by choice,slow where it counts
Forty-one people across two studios. We take on six to eight projects a year so that a partner stays on every one of them from the first site visit to the final inspection — no hand-over to a delivery team you have never met.
Founded2009
StudiosCopenhagen · Oslo
Team41 people
RegistrationsDAL · NAL · RIBA
How are your fees structured?
A percentage of construction cost for full commissions, typically between 8 and 12 percent depending on complexity and how much of the delivery phase we carry. Feasibility studies are a fixed fee agreed before we start, and it is deducted from the design fee if the project proceeds.
How long does a project take?
For a mid-sized housing scheme: two to three months of feasibility, six to nine months to planning consent, and twelve to twenty months on site. Adaptive reuse projects vary the most, because the structural survey can change the brief.
Do you work outside Denmark and Norway?
Yes, with a local partner practice for delivery and building control. We have completed work in Sweden, Germany and the Faroe Islands on that model, and we keep design authorship in-house throughout.
How do you handle sustainability targets?
We set an embodied-carbon budget at concept stage and report against it at every milestone, alongside operational energy. Reuse of existing structure is usually the single largest saving available, which is why we survey before we sketch.
Can you take a project over mid-way?
Sometimes. We start with a paid two-week review of the existing drawings and consents, then tell you honestly whether continuing is cheaper than restarting. We turn down roughly half of these.