Lead. A 35,000 m² office block from 1989 — built for the Eastern District Tax Authority and only lightly maintained since — modernised inside and out for a different working century. The competition asked not just for a re-skin, but for a building that could be a different kind of place to work after the renovation than it was before.

Site & brief. The existing structure is a deep-plan administrative block typical of late-Cold-War Norwegian institutional architecture — long wings, narrow punched windows, a sealed envelope, generic offices inside. The brief required a comprehensive overhaul: technical systems, energy performance, facade, and the office layouts. The client wanted a building that would read as new without demolishing the embodied carbon already on site.

Idea. Three moves, ranked by ambition. Open the facade — the studies compare the existing daylight-to-opening ratio against three progressively more transparent retrofit options, from larger awning windows to full-height glazing, picking the level that delivers daylight at every desk without overheating the deep plan. Cut voids through the floor plates — new double-height atria, light wells, and a fellesgate (common-street circulation) turn a sealed bureaucratic plan into a series of open, social interior spaces. Add public ground-floor functions — café, reception, meeting rooms — that the original block didn't have and the surrounding street needed.

Resolution. Beyond the re-skin, new sculptural volumes are slipped between and above the existing wings — including a tall iridescent connector that signals the renovation from the street without demolishing what's behind it. Inside, floor plates are punctured to bring daylight into the deep plan; mezzanines and atria host the new social programme. Energy performance is re-engineered comprehensively, but the structural shell — the most carbon-intensive element on site — is kept rather than demolished.