The Carve is an untraditional high-rise apartment building, part of the Barcode Plan in Oslo’s new waterfront development. The first 8 floors are designated office space, topped off with residential program, in a total of 22,000m2. The mixed program is structured compacting the office spaces in an efficient machine and optimizing the views and outdoor spaces of the apartments around a raised, covered garden. These 1,000m2 of common open areas elevated far above the street level, create a distance/buffer to the corporate world underneath. The architectural gesture allows for a terraced housing typology in the center of Oslo.