Fjordhus I at dusk, low buildings along still harbour water

Architecture forthe quiet life.

Fjordhus I, private residence, Vestland, 2024

We design very few buildings, and we design them slowly. Houses that hold morning light without asking for attention. Rooms that stay calm when the weather does not. Work made to be lived in, then handed down.

Selected works

Six commissions a year, presented sparingly. Three are shown here; the rest belong to their owners.

Morning room of Hvilehus, deep sofa beneath a tall north-facing window

Hvilehus

Private residence, Jutland, 2024

A single-storey house arranged around one north-lit morning room. The clients asked for somewhere to do nothing in particular, extremely well.

Oak, lime plaster, undyed wool

Sculptural white concrete forms of Kalkhus against a dark sky

Kalkhus

Private gallery, Skane, 2023

A white concrete pavilion for a collection of postwar sculpture. One room, one rooflight, and walls that hold shadow the way paper holds ink.

White concrete, travertine, cast bronze

Weathered granite steps of Stentrappe descending toward the water

Stentrappe

Harbour house, Bergen, 2022

A nineteenth-century harbour house remade around a single granite stair. Everything else in the building defers to it.

Granite, salvaged brick, blackened steel

Material studies

Fragments we keep returning to. Every commission starts in a room full of samples, not screens.

Latticed timber gridshell roof curving overhead
Gridshell study, Kalkhus roof
Terracotta floor tiles with a low oak side table
Fired clay floor, Hvilehus terrace
Vaulted masonry arcade in warm evening light
Vault survey, Stentrappe undercroft
Flat grey sea with a single distant sail
The horizon, from every site we accept

The slow wayto build.

I

Listen

Weeks of conversation before a single drawing. How you wake, where you read, what you would like to stop hearing.

II

Draw

Every scheme is drawn by hand before it touches software. The pencil is slower, which is the point.

III

Build

A small circle of makers we have trusted for a decade. One site at a time, visited weekly by a partner.

IV

Inhabit

We return a year after handover, once the building has settled and the truth of it is visible.

Elin Havstad photographed through rain-marked studio glass
Elin Havstad, founding partner

A studio builtto stay small.

Elin Havstad founded HAVN in 2011 after a decade with practices in Copenhagen and Oslo. The name is Danish for harbour: the place where movement stops.

The studio remains deliberately small. Two partners, six architects, and a waiting list it makes no effort to shorten. Every commission is led by a founder from the first sketch to the final door handle.

2011

Founded in Copenhagen

Six

Commissions a year

Two

Cities, one studio

The HAVN workroom, drafting tables under high windows
The workroom, Havnegade, Copenhagen

Written about in

  • Distinkt Journal
  • The Spatial Review
  • Nordisk Arkitektur

Commissions for 2027

Begin witha conversation.

enquire@havn.studio

A first conversation is unhurried and commits you to nothing.