Practice founded 1998 · Oslo & Copenhagen
Buildings that age without apology.
Housing, cultural and civic work in exposed concrete, timber and glass. We publish the drawings, the budget and what went wrong.
Selected projects
1998 — 2026
2024 · 84 unitsNordhavn Housing
Cross-laminated timber over a concrete podium. Came in 4% over budget, and we say why.
2021 · 3,200m²Sørlandet Library
A civic room first and a book store second. Naturally ventilated year round.
2019 · Adaptive reuseFoundry Rehabilitation
A 1912 iron foundry kept almost entirely intact, with new work clearly legible as new.
The area
What it's like to live here
How we charge
A percentage of construction cost, stated at the outset, with the stage payments written into the appointment.
What we publish
Drawings, budget and post-occupancy data for every completed building, including the ones that overran.
Who does the work
Fourteen architects. The person who wins the project is the person who draws it.
28yr
In practice
61
Buildings completed
4
Mies van der Rohe nominations
14
Architects
Your team
The people who will call you back
Ingrid Halvorsen
Founding partner
Leads the housing work. Draws by hand first, still.
Lars Bjornstad
Partner, civic
Library and cultural projects across Norway and Denmark.
Mette Sorensen
Associate, adaptive reuse
Specialises in keeping buildings rather than replacing them.
“They published the cost overrun and the reason for it in the project monograph. No practice does that.”
Sofia Marchetti
Architecture critic
Questions we get asked
What size of project do you take?
From single houses to 84-unit housing schemes. Below roughly 400,000 euro of construction cost we are probably not the right practice.
How do you charge?
A percentage of construction cost, stated at the outset with stage payments written into the appointment. No hourly billing.
Why publish cost overruns?
Because every practice has them and pretending otherwise makes clients distrust the whole profession. Nordhavn came in 4% over and the monograph says why.
Do you work outside Scandinavia?
We have, twice, and both times it cost the client more than it should have. We say no more often than yes.
Currently taking commissions for 2027.
Housing, cultural and civic work. We answer every enquiry, including the ones we decline.