Sep 2026 · Essay
Why our courtyards face south-west
Four years of sun studies, and the evening light people actually use.
Architecture & urban design · Copenhagen · since 2011
We drawbuildingsthat agewell.
We are a 34-person practice designing housing, schools and civic buildings across Scandinavia. We build in timber where we can and reuse what is already standing where we should.
Fig. 01: Havnegade Housing, Nordhavn
9,400 m² · Completed 2024 · 1:500
- built since 2011
- 62,400m²
- competitions won
- 11
- of floor area in timber or reuse
- 71%
- CO₂e/m², our 2025 average
- 236kg
- 01Havnegade HousingNordhavn, CopenhagenHousing · 9.4k m²
- 02Kvarterhuset LibraryValby, CopenhagenCivic · 2.1k m²
- 03Salt HallAarhus ØReuse · 4.8k m²
- 04Fyrtårn SchoolKøgeEducation · On site
- 05House on MønMøns KlintPrivate · 0.1k m²
- 06Refshale WorkshopsRefshaleøen, CopenhagenWorkplace · 3.1k m²
01 — Havnegade Housing
Typical floor, north block · 1:200
84 social homes around a courtyard that gets four hours of June sun, because the south block steps down to let it in.
02Drawing, not rendering
Every project starts as a plan on paper.
- 01
Site and sun
Before anything else we draw where the sun is on 21 March, 21 June and 21 December. Rooms people live in go where the light is.
- 02
Structure
Next comes a grid, usually timber and usually regular, sized so walls can move later without the building noticing.
- 03
Rooms
We draw rooms as rectangles, in proportions you could furnish blindfolded. Corridors are a last resort.
- 04
Doors, windows, life
Then we add the swing of every door and a window on two sides wherever we can, plus the table, the bed and the bike.
Drawn by S. ValeSheet A-101 · Rev. C
03The practice
“We would rather design one good room than ten interesting ones.”
Okuda & Vale was founded in 2011 by Haruki Okuda and Signe Vale, after a decade at practices in Kyoto and Copenhagen. We are now 34 architects, landscape architects and one very patient model-maker.
Most of our work is public: social housing, schools, libraries, and the occasional warehouse someone was about to knock down. We take on a small number of private houses each year, and the lessons from them end up in the housing.
Meet the studio04Process
Fifty-two weeks from first walk to first stone.
A typical 40–80 home housing scheme. Smaller buildings move faster. Competitions skip to week four.
- 01
Brief & site
Walk the site at dawn and at dusk. Read the local plan. Ask who will clean the windows.
4 weeks - 02
Concept
Three options as massing models and sun studies. You choose with us, not from us.
6 weeks - 03
Design development
Plans at 1:100, structure and costs fixed with the engineer and the quantity surveyor.
10 weeks - 04
Permits & detail
Building permit, then 1:20 details for every junction a contractor might guess at.
14 weeks - 05
Tender & mobilise
Tender, contractor chosen, and full-size mock-ups of anything you will see before the first stone.
18 weeks
05What we build
Sectors
- Housing14 projectsSocial and cooperative housing, from 12 to 240 homes.
- Education06 projectsDay-care, primary schools and one folk high school.
- Civic & culture05 projectsLibraries, community halls and a harbour bath.
- Adaptive reuse08 projectsWarehouses, a dairy and two churches, kept and reused.
- Private houses09 projectsOne or two a year, mostly on the islands.
06Recognition
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Nykredit Architecture PrizeNominated |
| 2024 | Mies van der Rohe AwardHavnegade Housing, longlist |
| 2023 | Copenhagen Building AwardKvarterhuset Library |
| 2023 | RIBA International PrizeSalt Hall, shortlist |
| 2021 | TræprisenRefshale Workshops |
| 2019 | C.F. Møller MedalHaruki Okuda |
07Journal
Notes from the drawing room.
Jun 2026 · Essay
Keeping the salt stains
What we learned from not painting a single column at Salt Hall.
Feb 2026 · Essay
Timber, honestly
Our embodied-carbon numbers for every project since 2018, including the bad ones.
08Contact
Have a site? Send us the address.
We reply to every enquiry within three working days. Tell us where it is, roughly what you have in mind and when. We'll come and look.
- Studio
- Refshalevej 163A1432 København KDenmark
- Hours
- Mon–Fri, 08:30–17:00
- Grid ref.
- 55.6931° N, 12.6098° E