Copenhagen — Architecture & Interiors
Homes made of light, material and a sense of place.
Halvorsen Studio is a small Copenhagen practice working on high-end residential architecture, adaptive reuse and interiors. We draw slowly, build carefully, and stay close to the work from the first sketch to the last door handle.
Villa Amager Strand — courtyard house, completed 2024
The studio
A small practice, working at a human scale.
Halvorsen Studio was founded in 2011 by Marit Halvorsen and Jonas Bjerre, two architects who had spent a decade inside large offices and wanted to be closer to the people who actually live in the buildings they draw.
We take on a deliberately limited number of commissions each year — usually eight to ten. That number lets us draw every detail ourselves, meet on site often, and stay honest about budget, programme and what a building can really do for the people in it.
Our work sits between Danish craft tradition and a contemporary northern European sensibility: pale timber, lime-washed plaster, robust stone and brick, and daylight treated as a material in its own right. We work across Copenhagen and Aarhus, and take on selected projects elsewhere in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
“We would rather build one house that ages well than ten that photograph well.”
Marit Halvorsen, founding partner
Selected work
Houses, transformations and interiors.
A selection of projects completed between 2021 and 2025 across Denmark, Norway and Sweden — from coastal new builds to warehouses with a history. Discuss a project
Villa Amager Strand
A courtyard house for a family of five, wrapped around a single lime tree and a rain garden that handles the whole site.
Kanalhuset
A 1940s shipyard workshop reopened as six apartments and a shared winter garden, with the original crane rail kept in place.
Skovgaardsvej
A 1920s villa extended to the north in pale brick, keeping the garden wall, the stair and every mature tree on the plot.
Kirkegata 14
A grain store from 1908 reopened to the fjord — 22 apartments, a café and a public passage cut through the ground floor.
Østerbro Townhouse
Two floors reworked around daylight, storage and a single long oak table — the room the whole family now lives in.
Drottninggatan Atelier
A photographer's studio and home in a converted 1890s print works, organised around one north-facing window.
What we do
Four ways we work with clients.
Most commissions begin as a conversation about a plot, a flat or a building that no longer fits the life going on inside it. We are happy to start there, before anything is drawn.
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01Residential architecture
New houses written around a brief, a plot and a view — from site study and massing through planning, detail design and site supervision. We work in brick, timber and stone, and always with an eye on how the building will be maintained for the next fifty years.
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02Adaptive reuse
Warehouses, schools, workshops and farm buildings given a new and useful life, with their structure, patina and history kept visible rather than covered over. We are comfortable with protected buildings and heritage authorities.
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03Interior architecture
Complete interiors for homes: joinery, staircases, material palettes, lighting design and furniture specification. Quiet rooms that work every day and still feel considered ten years on.
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04Feasibility, planning & permits
Early advice on what a site or building will actually allow, planning and cultural-heritage discussions, and applications prepared and followed through with the municipality from submission to decision.
How we work
One studio, from first sketch to handover.
Fewer than ten projects a year means the same two partners stay on your drawing set throughout. There is no handover to a delivery team, and no stage where you stop hearing from us.
Conversation
We meet, usually on site. You describe how you want to live; we describe, honestly, what the plot or the building is likely to allow.
Concept
Two or three directions sketched in plan, section and rough model, costed early enough that the decisions stay grounded.
Detail & permits
Drawings, materials and engineering coordinated into one set, with applications prepared and followed through with the municipality.
On site
Regular site visits, supplier selection and quality control through to handover — plus a year of follow-up after you move in.
Press
What the press says about Halvorsen Studio
“Halvorsen Studio has quietly become the practice Danish families call when they want a house that will still feel right in thirty years.” Arkitektur DK — Practice profile, 2024
- Arkitektur DK
- Dezeen
- Wallpaper*
- Elle Decoration Denmark
- Politiken
- Danish Association of Architects
Contact
Tell us about your project.
Send a few lines and we will come back to you within one working day. If it is easier, call the studio — we answer the phone ourselves, Monday to Friday.
Thanks — we'll be in touch within one working day.
Your enquiry is with the studio. Marit or Jonas will reply personally, usually the next morning.
If it is urgent, call +45 32 14 88 20 between 08:30 and 17:00.