Architects that stay connected

We are an award-winning Norwegian architecture practice with an international team based in Stavanger and Oslo, working across scales from housing and transformation to public buildings and urban development.

Since 1996, we have shaped architecture through relationships: between people, places, materials, processes and time. We partner with clients to navigate complexity and make informed decisions that lead to clear, buildable architecture with lasting value.

Between vision and reality, we organise buildings that foster connection rather than division and strengthen the potential of each project.

Helen and Hard team photo

More than form

Architecture today is shaped by more than form. It is shaped by regulation, climate, economy, ownership, public interest, material flows, social needs and long-term use.

Our role is to help clients understand how these conditions interact. We bring architectural judgement into early strategic conversations, helping clarify direction, reduce risk and unlock the potential of a project before decisions become fixed.

This advisory role continues through the process. From concept to construction, we help hold the architectural, commercial and human ambitions together.

Making things move

Remarkable architecture depends on the quality of attention given to it – and on the decisions that move a project forward. As a focused team, we work in tight-knit partnership with clients, consultants and collaborators, staying close to the risks, opportunities and details that shape each project.

This creates a carefully guided process where ambitions are refined and choices are made with genuine care. We help clients manage complexity, protect what makes a project distinct and create architecture that strengthens value over time.

We listen carefully, challenge when needed and take responsibility for turning shared ambition into places people use every day.

Built on experience and open to change

Since 1996, we have worked across scales and typologies: from individual private dwellings and shared housing models to large mixed-use developments, public cultural buildings, transformation and urban development projects.

Across them all, we engage with the unique potential of each place. Its local conditions. Its material possibilities. Its social dynamics. Its regulatory realities. Its future use.

Change is dynamic. What remains static is our ability to guide it with care.

“We pay attention to how materials reveal structure and meaning, how existing buildings and spaces can be transformed for new life, and how architecture emerges from the relationships between people and use.”

Helen & Hard

Awards

Storebrand Eiendoms Bærekraftspris 2023 – Innoasis
Storebrand Eiendom
2023
Holzbaupreis Tirol 2023, Housing – Vindmøllebakken
proHolz Tirol
2023
Kvam Herad byggeskikkpris 2022 – Tyrvefjøra
Kvam Herad
2022
Aftenbladets kulturpris 2022
Stavanger Aftenblad
2022
Mies van der Rohe Award, shortlisted – Vindmøllebakken, nominees – Finansparken og Samling Nord-Odal
European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture
2022
Innovation Award for Universal Design, Architecture Category – Vindmøllebakken
Design og Arkitektur Norge (DOGA)
2021
Statens pris for byggkvalitet, commended – Samling i Nord-Odal
Norwegian National Award for Outstanding Build Quality
2021
Byggeskikkprisen 2021 – Tou
Stavanger kommune
2021
Byggeskikkprisen 2020 – Financial Park
Stavanger kommune
2020
Statens pris for byggkvalitet – Vindmøllebakken
Norwegian National Award for Outstanding Build Quality
2020
Building of the Year – Financial Park
Byggeindustrien
2019
Timber Building of the Year – Financial Park
Byggeindustrien
2019
WAF Award (Office – Future Project), commended – Financial Park
World Architecture Festival
2018
Lifetime honour to be part of RIBA’s 2017 International Fellowships
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
2016
Building of the Year, nomination – Flekkefjord Cultural Centre
Byggeindustrien
2016
Architizer A+Award (Multi Unit Housing – High Rise) – Rundeskogen
Architizer
2015

Published

Video

JammerJam

In the partnership between Helen & Hard and NEB-STAR, JammerJam shows an example of how more stakeholders can be included in early conversations about future development in a neighbourhood.

The film documents a process on-site inside a workshop. Here we draw and discuss a basis for a vision of the neighbourhood’s future, together with the municipality, a landowner, a developer, neighbours, a social entrepreneur, an artist and architect.

With drawing as a tool, architects can contribute to more inclusive processes and the concretisation of sustainability with aesthetics as a driving force.

Watch the film here: JammerJam

Film by Moxey.

Helen and Hard In conversation with Louisiana Channel, We Are Firm Believers In Community
Video

We Are Firm Believers In Community

“Wood can connect the simple and the sublime.”

Louisiana Channel introduces – “We went to Norway to meet one of the rising stars in international architecture, Helen & Hard. With their insistence on community, sustainability and predominant usage of wood, they not only try to renew architecture itself but the way we live.“

Siv Helene Stangeland and Reinhard Kropf were interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner at various locations in and around Stavanger, Norway, in August 2022.

Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edited by: Simon Weyhe
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022

Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen. This film is supported by Dreyersfond.

Watch the video here

Collaboration is part of the architecture

We are always open to new conversations

Contact us