With the detailed design completed and a building contract signed, our remodelled apartment in central Oslo is ready for construction work to start April 2026.
Remodelled apartment in Central Oslo ready for construction
Remodelled family house in Bygdøy
We have delivered the sketch design for a remodelled family house close to the popular Huk beach, on Oslo’s Bygdøy peninsula.
Planning permission granted on Montebello-Hoff
We have been granted planning permission for our conversion and remodelling of a terrace house on the heights of Montebello-Hoff, in Western Oslo. Building work will start in April 2026.
Sketch section through the new living-room and its new kitchen
Fitted floor boards
Some fun hands-on carpentry in a flat refurbishment in central Oslo. using hand tools.
Vintage shop opening at Gaarder Gård
All construction work and upgrade of the annex building at Gaarder Gård is now completed, and the new 7th Heaven Vintage shop — hosted in the transformed listed building — opened its door to the public this weekend!
The space is now converted and open to the public, with minimum changes to the historical facades of the listed building
We were responsible for converting this unused garage space into a commercial space in a listed building in the centre of Eidsvoll. Despite stringent conservation requirements for the facades and being located within the flood zone of the Vorma river, we successfully collaborated with our client and Eidsvoll municipality to secure planning permission, infusing new life into an otherwise abandoned urban space.
Opening day at Vintage 7th Heaven (photo © Chriss Brohaug)
Planning permission granted in Oslomarka
We have just been granted planning permission for the extension and upgrading of a disused house in Oslomarka, the large forested belt surrounding Oslo.
Oslomarka is a major recreational area for the population of Oslo, with strict regulations to preserve its natural settings and guarantee wide public access to its attractive hilly landscapes. As a result, development in the area is for the most part prohibited.
Nonetheless, through thoughtful siting of the planned extension and careful integration of the necessary environmental upgrades to the house, we managed to secure planning permission for the project, allowing the house to be adapted to its new use and to modern environmental performances.
Visualisation for new build house
Some marketing visualisations we produced for our developer client, for a new build house we designed last year. With a planning application granted, building work should start this summer.
Opening a window
Visualising the effect of a new window in an existing kitchen, early in the design process to explore ideas with our clients…
The art of gardening: Astruptunet visitor centre
We have collaborated with Ur Arkitekter to submit a competition entry for the new visitor centre at Astruptunet. Our proposal places Nikolai Astrup’s love for gardening at the root of its artistic practice, bringing the luxuriant landscape and views at the core of the visitors’ new experience.
Nikolai Astrup is one of Norway’s most famous and beloved artists, renowned for his wild and lush gardens and his paintings of traditional life in his home country. His homestead, Astruptunet, is located on a steep rural site overlooking to grandiose landscapes of Jølstravatnet, in Jølster, Norway.
The work of the famed painter is currently exhibited in the small buildings of his own farm yard, interweaving his painting with the beautifully landscaped gardens he created throughout his life.
Kari – Motif from Sunde, Nikolai Astrup (1917)
The open design competition proposed to create a new visitor centre on adjacent to the landscaped site, to welcome visitors, hosts exhibitions, while Astrup’s houses and garden remains the centre remains the central to the experience of his artwork.
Section of our proposal, through the steep hillside: the landscaped approach from the bus stop, the exhibition spaces, the café and, at the top, the greenhouses
Planning application granted to new-build house in Eidsvoll
We have just been granted planning permission for our new-build family house on a steep hillside in Eidsvoll, Norway.
Sketch view of the new house, as seen from the approach road
Portfolio project
From basement to master wing
Our transformation of a family house in Oslo in now complete and our delighted clients can move into the brand new master wing of their home, converted from an existing disused basement.
The brief
Our clients wished to create a parent wing to their family home — a single floor on a two-unit house in Oslo. The new quarters were to accommodate their new master bedroom, together with a comfortable bathroom, home office and kitchen space. With the children growing up, the clients also liked the possibility of renting out part of the house in the future,
It was not possible to extend the house further onto the site, but the apartment had access to an existing basement, mostly unused. This low ceiling space was dark and uninsulated, and therefore cold and damp, and had no fire escape. High levels of radon gas were also measured in the underground space, making it further unsuitable to use as a living space. To complicate matters, this basement could only be accessed through a steep staircase, from a shared area outside the flat.
The dark and damp basement space, before the conversion
A new wing, filled with sunlight…
We focused our approach on creating new spaces that felt integrated into the existing home, with a sense of privacy yet avoiding the common claustrophobic feeling of converted basement spaces.
Since the conversion of the basement needed new fire escapes, we made the most of these required new openings, transforming them into landscaped staircase and planted light wells, bringing daylight and views from the garden deep into the new spaces. Transforming technical constraints into creative opportunities!
With minimum changes to the existing structure and services of the house, we relocated the staircase to the inside of the flat, connecting the new space below to the existing circulation, so that it became a natural extension of the home. All technical functions were concentrated in the middle of the plan, with a large bedroom, home office, gym space, kitchen and modern bathroom wrapping around them along the new large windows. Deeper into the floor plan, where no daylight could be brought, we tucked efficient storage space for the family.
The new lower floor has generous access to the garden, through a cascading timber terrace, transforming what could have been a dark access staircase into a attractive and private exterior space, streaming sunlight into the new bedroom.
“2hD has helped us to evolve an old, dusty and mouldy basement into a place we love to spend our time at home”
Comfortable and future-proof
Our remodelling strategy integrated a full upgrade to the basement fabric, adding high insulation levels in the new lowered basement floor and existing walls — greatly improving both thermal comfort and energy efficiency — as well as in the ceiling to create acoustic privacy from the upper floor.
In the long-term future, renting out the lower floor as a separate apartment will be as simple as closing a couple of doors, to separate a fully living unit equipped with kitchen, bathroom and wood oven, and with direct access from the street through its private terraced exterior staircase.
The existing apartment house, with the new terraced staircase, leading discretely down to the transformed lower floor
Do you want to breathe new life into unused parts of your home?
Photos of the converted barn in Gabillou
I got a chance over the summer to visit the fully converted stone barn that we designed in Gabillou, in south-west France.
This 19th century agricultural building was transformed into a stunning home between 2007 and 2018, by our self-builder clients themselves, who lived in the building over the course of the conversion process, thanks to our phased construction design approach.
With an amazing attention to detail and a lot of enthusiasm, the couple has now become expert self-builders and joiners, already looking forward to a new conversion project to use their skills!
Below is a collection of pictures I took of the finished barn this August.
Dreaming of converting a historical building into your new home?
Paws Project : Doggy wellness centre in an agricultural barn conversion
Our conversion of a former cow shed into a canine wellness centre for The Paw Project is complete.
We opted to keep the new development low and spreading to create a welcoming outdoor sheltered space for owners and their dogs. This lack of formality reduces stress for the dogs, giving them space to mingle and to see where they are going.
Two main enclosed spaces house an office and acupuncture studio, and a grooming and treatment area. An open barn-like space is hidden behind a sliding gate for use for agility and behavioural classes.
A seating area and sales point/event space are located under a protective canopy, creating an intimate scale under the soaring barn roof. These features, along with the enclosed spaces, screen the rear of the barn from view.
A phased development plan means that there is space to expand the facilities in the future, whilst presenting a complete environment to visitors in the short term.
Client: @the_pawproject Design & build contractor: Sheltered Spaces
Møllenberg: Urban gardening in Trondheim
Our photomontage for the cover of the competition entry
We have just collaborated with Ur Arkitekter on a prequalification entry for the masterplanning competition of the Møllenberg neighbourhood in Trondheim, Norway..
Rethinking the identity and social dynamics of this historical neighbourhood in the centre of Trondheim — today mostly populated by students — our concept proposal explores how communal urban farming can be used as a catalyst to foster social diversity and renew community engagement in the city.
Portfolio project
Riddle: a sculpture from waste plastic
Future Makers is a Nottingham-based creative studio who has been spending the last five years researching the potential of waste plastic, bringing together the local community, design creatives and artists to create innovative artwork and products.
Having recently acquired a whole set of waste plastic recycling and manufacturing equipment (which we have already started experimenting with), they announced an open call for a lead artist to craft an outdoor public artwork in front of their building, using one tonne of locally-sourced plastic waste.
The street facade of the existing Waste Plastic Studio (photo © Future Makers)
Our proposal
Continuing our exploration of community-built urban interventions in Nottingham, we responded to this open call with a diaphanous facade sculpture, to transform the Future Makers' building itself into a large art piece, and create a visually striking and intriguing street presence that hovers over the public space.
Questioning the ubiquitous nature of plastics in today's built environment and consumer society, the sculpture takes the form of a diaphanous mesh appearing to deform in and out of the building facades, to exude from the fabric of the building itself: the manifestation of the presence of plastics in a new, recycled form — and its metamorphosis from undesirable waste to creative potential. This large undulating sculptural mesh creates a unified identity across the site, linking the public space, the building entrance and the large industrial shed at the back.
How we use recycled plastic
Despite its visual complexity, the mesh of the sculpture is created entirely out of identical recycled plastic modules, assembled in a repeating reciprocal pattern. The mesh derives its three-dimensional shape from the pattern of assembly of these modular components, linked together with a simple zip-tie-like "cilium" component.
Building the sculpture
The form of the sculpture emerges not from the complexity of its components, but from the assembly process itself: simply varying the pattern of assembly along the mesh allows shear, deformation and stiffening of the surface into a complex shape that symbolically intersects with the building's facades.
Assembling the sculpture is deceptively simple and can happen almost entirely on the ground, before being attached to the facades. The assembly and erection of the different sections of the sculpture will be carried out during community workshops involving neighbours, local schools and fellow artists, creating a sense of ownership while introducing a large audience to the potential of recycled plastics as a creative material, through practical, hands-on workshops.
Continuing our journey
Since its inception, 2hD has explored the relationship between architecture, visual arts and community engagement, through a series of successful international art projects ranging from architectural pavilions to collective sculptural work, interactive installations, scenography and audio-visual performances.
The common thread through all these different projects is our personal research into architectural elements as a receptacle for our own stories, emotions and daydreams, introducing a fractional dimension to surfaces to invite this projection — and exploring how, in turn, it affects how we perceive and inhabit the spaces they define.
This proposal also keys in with our love for reusing ubiquitous and repurposed materials: transformed cardboard boxes for collective community sculptures in The Lost Cuckoo, recycled plastic tubing to introduce school children and architecture students to complex geometries during hands-on teaching sessions, and natural fiber broom heads to clad an entire building for our Mission Control micro-office.
