Guided tours in Oslo and Bergen, architectural tours
Architectural tours, art, history - and culture tours both leisure and further education on a high level and with a lot of expertise. Local architects and professionals.
Bike rides, walking-tours, buss-tours. From 3h to several days.
Suitable for individuals, families, small groups and groups up to ca 200 participants.
Our team offers tours in: English, German, Norwegian, french
Bergen:
The very special city of Bergen, former hanseatic city
Oslo:
Oslo opera house, detail: Stone ("the carpet"), concrete (the construction), steel and glass (the facade) and wood ("the wave" - the wall of the opera-hall)
Just a small selection from the menu:
. Individual tours designed from professionals for professionals
. Individual tours designed for culturally interested people
. The great fjord tour – a city at the waterfront.
from 3 hours (get an overview of the city centre) up to one day. Learn about the transformation of the waterfront. A tour going deep into the city development over the last decades, and visiting all the exiting sites along the waterfront.
. The hidden treasures of the city - stories and secrets you will not find in the books
. The New Deichmanske library – more than a building, but an open space for everybody. History, architecture, construction, technical details and finesse.
. Museum-hopping not just for rainy days – explore the new museums at the waterfront (and get acquainted with the story behind the architecture)
. Oslo's great greens – Landscape architecture in the city
. Soon available: Sacred buildings – a tour with both, architecture-pearls, culture and history.
. Summer-tour: Biking and bathing - Oslo has astonishing beaches and baths. This tour is a biking-tour, available on sunny days (which we have lot´s of)!
. Living like a local! This tour will focus on your needs and themes. Additionally we will include and comment all the activities which are offered by the city for free or for little money, visiting the charming but hidden places: acting as a local!
My personal favorite: Sustainable Oslo
Keywords: Wooden architecture, massive wood, concrete-structures, circular economy, landscape architecture, culture-, office- and public buildings, residential building, schools, zero co2 emission.
Residential building "Greenhouse", an infill project
Residential building in solid wood construction
Oslo is making great progress in the idea of Circular Economy. The office-house "Spaces" in Kristian Augusts gate 13 is a ground-breaking re-use project where a building from the 1950s has been upgraded by reusing construction materials and employing circular solutions with nearly 80%. It's greenhouse gas emissions decrease by 70 per cent. Now we have a few projects in progress, including a warehouse (The circular resource centre) for materials to reuse.
Our tour Materials focus on materials and how to use them. Both existing materials and new developments are interesting. Just as an example: concrete, known as one of the most energy consuming materials. We visit examples with sophisticated Norwegian concrete solutions, for example the marvelous Deichmanske library.
The latest example in accordance with circular principles and low-carb concrete (here a clay-based concrete) is the so-called Skur 38, a listed building at the waterfront. Originally built as a warehouse in 1915, remodeled to serve as the Oslo Port Authority's headquarters in 1987, Skur 38 went through severe renovation and modernization over the years, and reopened in 2022.
Wood in the city is definitely our favorite tour. We focus on massive-wood buildings. Just to mention two examples: Valle Wood – Oslo's first massive-wood office-building with 7 floors, opened in 2020. Another fine example of massive wood is an 5 stories housing project in the rather dense district of Grønneløkka (picture above). A project that not only tries to make the apartment building itself more sustainable, but also encourages a more environment-friendly lifestyle.
Both projects are examples in the private sector and illustrate the initiative of the owners matters!
The newest trend in building technique is build for dismantling: Structures which are designed to be easily disassembled and reassembled. Hasle tre is Oslo's first office building (3000 m2) which is not only built in accordance with circular principles, but also both the construction consists of wood from the inside to the outside and is planned as a dismantled and reusable building set.
The sustainable tours are also designed for landscape architects.
All tours are from 3h and can easily be combined with other topics.
We offer tours with a sustainability theme over several days. We might go deeper into the details, organizing additional lectures and talks with architects and engineers.
We will adjust each tour to the individual requirements of our customers.
Welcome!