As the year comes to an end, we want to take this opportunity to extend to you our seasonal greetings and share some of our proudest and most memorable moments of 2021.

2021 has been a year were where we saw the growth of the office continue, in both our projects, our staff and in the impact we are trying to make on our shared planet.

In our participation in the Venice Biennale we were able to test a lot of the ideas we are working on at full scale. We prefabricated our installation in Denmark and brought it on-site in Venice where it was assembled and nurtured 1200 conifers from seedlings to trees ready for transplantation in Naturbyen in the coming spring. When the exhibition concluded at the end of November, the installation was disassembled, packed and shipped back to Denmark where throughout the month of December it has been displayed in the window of our local toy store – fully decorated in seasonal colors and ornamentation. In the beginning of the new year the installation will travel to its new home with one of our long-time collaborators and partners in Copenhagen.

Close to 300.000 people visited the Biennale this year, addressing one of the most pressing questions ever: How will we live together? We leave 2021 and enter 2022 in a continuous pursuit to answer this question. We hope you will join us in this challenging quest.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Record many projects on site

We have seen a dramatic increase in construction projects in 2021. In Frederiksberg, the UMEUS/Noli mixed residential masterplan is finishing the first foundations and around the corner a courtyard infill has just begun demolition. The Maritime Academy in Svendborg is close to topping out, while we have succeeded in delivering a co-housing transformation in Frederiksberg, a renovation of the iconic concert venue and theater AmagerBio and the Veterans Home expansion in Aarhus.

The landscape team has completed the first two parts of the resilience and public space strategy in Tønder, with the third part exposing the oldest existing harbor front in Denmark, and as a result, pending further archaeological exploration. Last week Mimers Plads was inaugurated in Copenhagen – delivering on our strategy of building a public space using nothing but recycled materials.

Competition wins across all scales

Our creative team has been busy competing on both the national and international scene – with great success!

We kicked off the year by winning the competition to design a new headquarter for German newspaper Kieler Nachrichten and a new residential masterplan in Switzerland entirely built from timber.

We followed up on the national scene by winning the competition to transform the industrial harbor in Middelfart into a new resilient and diverse neighborhood and also received a shared victory in the competition to design the first project for Danish prop-tech startup Home.Earth.

Working towards a regenerative future

We are lucky to participate in a partnership with VELUX and MOE to pursue net-zero construction. Our plan is to exhibit a working prototype at the UIA World Congress of Architecture in 2023 at Jernbanebyen in Copenhagen.

With like-minded partners from CEBRA and Danske Ark we are working on a roadmap for carbon reduction in the building industry. We are looking forward to the release early next year.

Around the world from our broom closet

Despite pandemic restrictions curbing most international physical events and travel, we received more invitations than ever, to lecture, debate, participate in digital events, panels and podcasts.

Some highlights from the year include the digital conference Build For life, Building Green in Copenhagen and podcasts for The Creative Insider and All Good Vibes.

The Biennale participation of course had a lot of our focus this year, but we also contributed to IKEA and Financial Times’ exhibition at COP26 in addition to exhibitions at the Danish Architecture Centre, World Expo in Dubai and exhibited projects in Graz and Madrid.

We have also been privileged to have delivered chapters to some important books and publications throughout the year. Ressourceblokken investigates how to upcycle and reuse building components and debris from concrete modernism of the 1960s and 70s whereas the The Ideal City, København and Gellerup investigate good examples of city planning, urban space and transformation.

A growing team

We have rounded up 2021 welcoming a total of thirteen new colleagues to our team and we are planning to keep adding knowledge and experience to the office by welcoming even more new talents early in the new year.

In December, our office space in Blågårdsgade was re-organized to make room for our growing team and plans for expanding our physical space in the old phone central in Nørrebro are already well underway.

What we are looking forward to in 2022

In 2022 we are looking forward to the final shortlist of the Mies van der Rohe award. Both the Forest Tower and Gellerup Park are among the 523 nominated works. A shortlist of 40 will be announced in January 2022 and the winners are announced in April 2022.

Only last week, we were notified that the Hamaren Activity Park and Nature Experience in Norway is moving forward into construction after New Year. This will without a doubt be one of the most beautiful construction sites for us to date!

We are working on a handful of projects in Belgium, most of which remain confidential, so we are very pleased to share that we will start work on the Tour & Taxis urban redevelopment in the beginning of January.


And to finish of where we started, the 1.200 trees from the Venice Biennale will be planted out in the spring to kick off the new community forest at Naturbyen in Middelfart,

Our wish for Christmas is granted - ‘more forest’.

Happy new year - see you in 2022!