A visit to the summer cabin in Hvitsten we remodelled and extended a few years ago. The little annex cabin and terraced landscape that we have just finished designing are now in the process of being built. The landscaping on this steep site overlooking the Oslo Fjord is really bringing together the different indoor and outdoor spaces, happily used by three generations of families and friends!
A pod-like extension provides services, daylight and ventilation.
This intriguing little project is now under construction in Nottingham. Our client’s town house occupies part of a former builder’s joinery workshop in a Conservation Area. Entry to the main house is through the ground floor of a free-standing former boiler house, complete with an 11m high brick chimney. Our challenge was to re-purpose this special, tiny building to contain a home working office and guest accommodation.
We stripped out and redesigned the boiler house interior to fit a mezzanine level under the opened-up roof structure, and used ‘space saver’ stairs to maximise the floor area. The tiny floor plan is offset by an impressive vertical connection between the levels- with everything needed for occupation accessed off a vertical circulation route culminating in the bed platform.
Careful organisation of the section creates space for a mezzanine level
The temptation is to cut lots of holes in an existing building to let in light, provide ventilation and create new service routes, but in this case we decided to preserve the integrity of the boiler house by adding a highly-serviced pod to the exterior. This provides the necessary service connections, and brings light and ventilation to the interior. The addition is anonymous, in keeping with the industrial heritage of the building whilst creating intrigue and mystery of its own.
Lead designer: 2hD Architecture Workshop
Structural Engineer: ML Kubik & Son
We recently achieved Planning Permission for a new birdwatching hide and observation deck for the National Trust at Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire.
Set at the edge of the fen, the structure was inspired by the singular setting of the SSSI site. The fully accessible birdwatching hide is nestled like a cocoon inside a screen of undulating timber battens. The observation deck above gives view over Sedge Fen, roosting site for Marsh and Hen Harriers. A final eyrie-like observation level gives 360° views ,which take in the whole of Wicken Fen nature reserve and the big skies for which it is famed.
The building nestles into the Carr (tree scrub) at the edge of the Fen.
The highly sensitive eco system of the site is based on 3 meters depth of peat soil, so the structure is designed in collaboration with Canham Consulting Engineers to “touch the earth lightly”, elevated above the Fen on piles so that the habitat can flow underneath. A gently ramped boardwalk, designed for wheelchair accessibility, connects the hide to the existing boardwalk footpath some 30m away.
A fully accessible bird hide at the entry level floats 1.5m above the fen, upper levels can be explored via a triangular staircase to the rear.
Wicken Fen is the National Trust’s oldest nature reserves and one of the most important wetlands in Europe, supporting over 9000 species including a spectacular array of plants, birds and insects. 2hD won the commission via a competitive interview in partnership with Sheltered Spaces, with whom we went on to design the timber cladding and the public consultation process. It is a great privilege to be entrusted with such a sensitive site and to be supported by a client keen to think afresh about how visitors might experience and understand the Fen’s sense of place.
2hD Architecture Workshop: Lead designer
Sheltered Spaces: Timber design consultant, public consultation
Canham Consulting: Structural engineering
AMA: Construction cost management
Timber screen experiments with Marcus of Sheltered Spaces
Our visualisation of our proposed roof terrace in central Oslo
Having secured planning permission for our roof terrace project in central Oslo, we are now finalising the detailed design, with construction of the staircase extension and roof landscape due to start on site this spring. Above is a quick visualisation we prepared for our clients’ presentation to the residents of the housing cooperative — based on the 3D model that will also be used to communicate all the technical documentations for the construction phase.
The south gables of the completed log cabins, on the snowy fields of Sjusjøen (Photos by Simon Stende)
For this project, we were tasked to design a new winter retreat on the snowy slopes of Sjusjøen, a popular cross-country skiing resort close to Lillehammer, Norway.
Our clients — a family of five — wanted to create a place to gather their extended family and friends for winter vacations and celebrations, accommodating up to three large families simultaneously — up to 16 people.
Unusually, when our clients approached us, they had already selected a contractor to prefabricate and erect their future cabin, using the traditional log house technique. As they were not satisfied with their existing design solutions, they asked us to develop a custom design, tailored to their specific needs, which would also follow the contractor’s prefabricated construction method.
Our sketch plans of the cabin’s ground and upper floors
At the centre of our design, the large kitchen and the sunken fireplace lounge act as the two main gathering places, where guests can congregate around the main focal points of the cabin: the communal dining table and the large open fireplace. In contrast, each family enjoys its own private accommodation wing, branching off from these main spaces, with the sleeping quarters tucked away from the vibrant social rooms.
Between these two extremes, we intentionally convoluted the internal circulations to create gradients of privacy and strings of informal sitting spaces along them, where guests could interact throughout the day, but also giving opportunities for more quiet, private activities.
Each wing can be used independently, so that the effective size of the cabin can easily be adapted to the number of guests.
The exterior of the newly completed cabin, showing the use of the traditional materials and details of Norwegian log construction (Photo by Simon Stende)
While the interior of the cabin is intricate and spacious, its exterior maintains the compact aesthetics and typology of traditional log architecture — with its multiple interconnected volumes cascading down the sloped site, each visually expressing the different functions of the spaces they enclose.
Three distinct outdoor spaces are tucked around the wings of the building, anchoring further the cabin onto the site: the sheltered main entrance on the north side with access to ski storage, a sunny south courtyard linking the dining space to the open views, and a private terrace to the west, on which an outdoor bath can be enjoyed in the evening sun.
Our design served as the basis for the detailing and production of the hand-sawn logs that were produced and installed on site by the specialist contractor. The result is a very personal cabin, perfectly suited to the needs of its owners and embracing the tradition of Nordic log construction.
We have just received planning permission for our roof terrace project on an existing residential block in central Oslo. We will now proceed with coordinating the detailed design with the structural and fire engineering consultants and finalising the tender documents to appoint a main contractor for the project.
Long perspective across the living spaces in the remodelled home
We have just completed the extension and remodelling of a family apartment in Jar, a close suburb of Oslo.
Our clients wanted help to expand their family apartment on the upper floors of a two-family unit that had become too tight for their growing family. In particular, the main living space, which served as a kitchen, dining-room and living-room was over-crowded and awkwardly placed next to bedroom of their three year old daughter. Ancillary spaces were also impractical and a separate washroom was needed to free up space in the bathroom.
Having analysed the existing spaces, we understood that this small extension project could really unlock the potential of the whole house: creating a welcoming and accessible entrance, activating the unused circulation spaces and restoring the connection to the garden — all without increasing our clients’ initial budget.
We wanted to create a feeling of spaciousness and diversity inside the apartment. This is achieved by opening long perspectives across the whole house, visually linking strings of distinct spaces along them.
A new porch shelters the approach to the house and frames the entrance to the new hallway, now with level access from the exterior. This view extends across the high ceiling space and through a glazed door, all the way to the pergola in the garden. To the side, a more subdued space links the wardrobes to the new washroom.
With the extension of the house, the preserved staircase is now located at the centre of the house and acts as a vertical axis serving four different sub-levels, between the ground and upper floors. These help breaking up the height into a series of separate, yet connected spaces, so that the different floors feel more unified into a whole.
This feeling of diversity is further echoed on the horizontal axis, with a long perspective across four distinct spaces on the upper floor — through the dining-room and the staircase, the new study and TV-room, eventually opening up to the evergreen vegetation outside.
The exterior of this extension integrates seamlessly with the existing structure of the house, both in volumes and materials. Yet, despite its modest scale, the addition of the extension restructures the house to give a sense of spaciousness and spatial diversity to the interior, creating a more flexible home for this family.
“2hD really listened to our needs and ideas. And they managed to integrate them in their design thinking to completely transform our apartment.
We didn’t expect this project to have such an impact on how we experience our home. It used to feel like a small apartment. Now it feels like a spacious house!”
The observation tower of the “tree house”, poking over the highest terrace of the garden
Some photos of the landscaping project we completed two years ago close to Østensjø, a natural reserve in Oslo.
The central piece of this project was a staircase that dovetailed the different exterior spaces around a private house, overlooking the lake from a steep rock face. Spiralling among the rocks covered with lush vegetation, this timber stair also doubles as an observation tower and secret hiding “tree house” for the children.
Approaching the new courthouse in Eidsvoll (design by Besseggen Arkitekter)
Continuing our collaboration with Besseggen Arkitekter, we have produced a series of illustrations to present a new court house project to the municipality of Eidsvoll, Norway.
This ambitious project, designed by Besseggen, aims at gathering on the same site the different courthouses of the region as well as a new police station, cradling the site of the old train station on the bank of the Vorma river.
Thanks to an efficient design workflow developed by Besseggen, we were able to produce inspiring illustrations based on their BIM model at an early stage of the design process.
These images were used to present the project to the local community and gather political support, before the Norwegian Court Administration takes a decision later on this year on the future location of the new regional courthouse.
We have just completed the feasibility study of our first project above the Arctic Circle, in Harstad, Northern Norway!
Massing concept for the first prototype houses (6 living units) of our proposed modular construction system for the housing development.
Working in collaboration with a building company, we were tasked by a local land owner and developer to prepare a design strategy for a large housing development on 35,000 m2 of newly zoned area overlooking Vågsfjorden, a fjord just north of the beautiful Lofoten archipelago.
The site had been earmarked for fairly dense housing development by Harstad city council and our client wanted to meet this vision while creating a visually harmonious housing community that integrated well with the natural beauty of the site. Pre-fabricated solutions was also a preferred to keep the project cost-effective and limit site constructions times in difficult climatic conditions.
Following a detailed analysis of the site configurations, we developed a custom modular construction system for the houses, tailored specifically to the needs of the project. Our solution took the form of two prefabricated core modules that could be combined in a wide variety of configurations to adapt to the topography, access orientation and size of each plot to maximise the use of the site. In addition, we created a number of variations based on these two modules to combine dwellings — catering for the local housing market demand as well as meeting the development density that the local authorities were calling for.
Using this modular approach, we initially designed 18 different configurations, complete with interior layouts, parking options and external spaces — including single-family houses (with and without rental units), two-family houses, terrace houses and small apartment blocks — that would allow more than 80 living units (9,000 m2 ) to be developed on the site.
We are now starting the detailed design for this modular system, ahead of the construction of four prototypes (for a total of 12 dwellings) on site next year, as well as visualisations and customisation options for marketing the project .
We have just been exploring alternative options to create a terraced garden on the roof of an existing residential block in central Oslo. Our clients — a housing cooperative — wanted to create outdoor social spaces that could be used by all residents and accessed with minimum alterations to the existing building.
Coordinating with the builder, a structural engineer and a fire engineer, we developed three alternative sketch design approaches with various level of complexity and size, each complete with an outline budget, scope of work and timescale.
These design approaches will be reviewed on their annual meeting by the residents and, once a preferred options is selected, we will be proceeding with the detailed design and planning application for the project over the summer.
The existing roof terrace, currently not accessible.
Concept design visualisation of our future fire station in Såner, Norway, with its public facing core building and connected modular fire engine halls at the back.
I have been collaborating this last week with Besseggen Arkitekter (with whom we are sharing our new office in Oslo), developing a design strategy for a new fire station in Vestby, Norway.
The competition brief called for an easily extendable building, with a strong focus on personnel safety. I have prepared this sketch concept view, together with diagrams explaining our design approach to address these points. Using a construction strategy based on modular plug-in elements with identical folded structure roofs, each module can be easily connected to the station as it expands in the future, supplementing both additional capabilities and associated staff accommodation to the facilities.
The design strategy diagrams we prepared for the competition
In this project, we helped a housing developer unlock the potential of a complex site in the beautiful neighbourhood of Nordstrand, in Oslo. Bringing together our skills in site analysis and visualisation, we designed and presented alternative development strategies for the site, helping the developer and the site owner to build architecture that is both inspiring and financially viable.
A visualisation of the site with sun access at different season, as part of our site anany
A view of the site before development, with its mature trees and steep north-facing rocky slope at the back
Surrounding by elegant villas with fantastic views to Oslo Fjord, the undeveloped site had a complex topography, with a north-facing rocky slope dropping 11 meter drop across the site, overgrown with several large mature trees.
This unusual configuration made the site unsuitable for standard off-the-shelf housing solutions. So the developer asked us to assess the viability of a development and to bring in some creative thinking to showcase the potential of the site to the site owner.
Using available topographic information and photos, we started by creating a 3D model of the site landscape and its surrounding, which would serve as the basis for our analysis and presentation.
The various layers of planning regulations for the site were then analysed and compiled into a clear set of constraints applying to the project. The surrounding architectural context was also carefully taken into consideration, so that the development would not only integrated with the landscape, but also related meaningfully with the existing architectural language and scale of the residential area.
Our visual representation of the constraints on the complex site considerably simplified the decision-making process for the developer
Identifying viable development options and their planning consequences
Presenting these constraints visually, together with topographic and climatic data, we summarised a set of alternative scenarios for the development, each with the associated areas, possible building forms, parking and access requirements and consequences on the potential complexity of the planning process.
With all information clearly summarised, the developer could easily review the options — weighing costs versus complexity of the required planning process — to select an optimal development scale matching his financial and marketing approach.
With the project scale now clearly defined (in our case, three single family units), we proceeded with structuring the site and developed alternative architectural strategies based on this scenario.
Our focus was on preserving the natural feel of the site, making the most of the existing topography and vegetation to create attractive outdoor spaces with extensive access to the sun for a large part of the year, despite the awkward orientation of the site.
The dwellings were articulated around the different levels of the landscape to minimise groundworks on the site, preserve the existing trees and promote accessibility.
Their volumes were laid out to reduce self-shading of the garden areas, balancing open communal outdoor areas with more private garden spaces linked to each dwelling, framing view from the living spaces and preserving a feeling of privacy from neighbours.
The result was five alternative architectural strategies that could be presented by the developer to the site owner.
We organised our presentation around clear diagrams that visually summarised each strategy, with site plans, massing perspectives and outline dwelling organisations. so that the site owner — who had no previous experience in development — could appreciate the potential of the site and take inform decisions about its future.
Architecture and art magazine designboom featured an article on their website about our new micro-office Mission Control.
Another article about our experimental micro-office Mission Control was published today on ArchDaily.
Nice to see that our experimental micro-office Mission Control has been featured on architecture magazines and websites around the world, including:
A client have just sent us some photos of the finished staircase we have designed for her house.
We designed this little structure to provide access from the upper terraces of the house down to the garden space. Since the garden was also a prime spot for children play, we designed the staircase wrapped around a “treehouse”, in which the children can hide and play, or take a fun shortcut climb back home!
