With 90+ categories and 300+ jurors, the Architizer A+Awards is the world’s definitive architectural awards program. In anticipation of the Awards Gala and Phaidon book launch on May 14, we are pleased to share the stories behind the winners of the 2015 Awards program — see all of them here.
Helen and Hard as won the 2015 A+Awards, Jury Choice, for the Residential: Multi-Unit Housing – High Rise (16+ Floors) Category with Rundeskogen. Designed in collaboration with dRMM, the ‘Rundeskogen’ apartments are situated at an infrastructural node, linking three cities on the west coast of Norway.
Your names: Reinhard Kropf and Siv Helene Stangeland
Firm name: Helen and Hard AS
Location: Stavanger and Oslo, Norway
Education: Siv Helene Stangeland: AHO, Oslo Norway and ETSAB Barcelona. Reinhard Kropf: TU Graz, Austria, AHO Oslo Norway.
When did you decide that you wanted to be an architect?
Reinhard knew it already from his childhood, while I (Siv) knew I would become either artist or architect when I was 12–13 years old.
First architecture/design job:
Our first professional job was a restaurant in a vernacular sea house in 1994.
Design hero and/or favorite building (and why):
A very early hero (who remains one) is Antoni Gaudí. The way that he combined his colorful, organic, and structurally advanced architecture with beautiful handcraft is still an inspiration.
What do you find exciting about architecture and design right now?
Right now, we are excited about how we can make architecture with an ecological awareness. We think that having this awareness will change the way that we conceive and experience architecture. We are entering an era where architecture not only serve human needs, but have to restore nature as well as redefine our relation to it.
Tell us something that people might not know about your A+Award submission:
The three towers were planned to be built with a timber structure of beams and columns — it was even calculated to be the same building cost as concrete.
Which jurors do you find most compelling and why?
Olafur Eliasson for his approach to making art experiential.
Among your fellow A+Award winners, what is/are your favorite(s)?
Carnal Hall by Bernard Tschumi.
Other than your computer (or phone), what is your most important tool?
The ongoing creative dialogue between us is the most important tool to develop architecture.
Outside of architecture, where do you look for inspiration?
Nature is without comparison the most inspiring source.
What is the most important quality in an architect?
Our ability to create novelty resides in the way we can enter in conversation with ourselves and the wider context in which a project evolves. This conversation emerges from a deep listening and receptivity and is in fact an act of both empathy and generosity.
See all of the 2015 A+Award Winners here and all of the Winner Q+A’s here — and preorder the book from Phaidon here.
