Established and expanding – Norconsult’s architects breaks ground

By John Sempill | Photos: Jansin & Hammarling

A global company with roots in Scandinavia, Norconsult has offices all over the world specialising in the building segment. Apart from industrial construction expertise in the private and public sector, Norconsult has an army of specialised architects making their Swedish division one of the biggest in the country.

“Norconsult has 1200 architects, engineers and environmental consultants within construction and real estate; infrastructure, architecture, energy, water and sewage; industry, environment and digitization,” Head of Architecture Jessica Eriksson tells us. “With roughly 200 employees in architecture, Norconsult is one of Sweden’s largest architectural hubs.”

Established and expanding – Norconsult’s architects breaks ground

Jessica Eriksson, Head of Business Development Architecture at Norconsult. She has extensive experience as lead architect in a variety of projects and a master of architecture from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

Before starting a project, they make sure to bring in expertise from all of their different fields, even ahead of the first sketches. “This is what makes the Norconsult way of working so special,” Eriksson says. “There are few corporations with the same closeness as us – our architects have their desks close to acousticians as well as infrastructure engineers, to mention a few. We can put together a work group of experts very quickly.”

The emphasis is on the expertise – all in-house, ready to go. This is something they call ‘informed design’. “An acoustician might have an instant suggestion on how to work with urban sound planning when we try different placements for a new school on a schoolyard”, Eriksson continues. “We have very early access to this type of vital information.”

By experimenting early on, they can eliminate potential miscalculations before the design process has gone too far. “We design by asking questions”, she explains. “We make sure our client is included in the process, taking the initial steps together for the best possible outcome. This gives us an important foundation and direction moving forward.”

The art stage at CIK, a close collaboration between Norconsult’s acousticians and architects.

Cross expertise

Being a global company, Norconsult is able to take advantage of a wide range of know-how. They use the expression ‘cross expertise’, which is a perfect way to describe the accumulated knowledge and cooperative skills across the company, for any given project. “We have a lot of experience in cooperating in projects across cities, sometimes even across the Nordic countries, and can put together big teams if needed,” says Eriksson. “We’ll always make sure staff is close to the client for local meetings. With our expertise in all of our covered areas, we’re used to taking on vast and complex projects and general consultant assignments.”

CIK won the architecture prize, European Property Awards in the category of Mixed-use Architecture.

Innovation

Norconsult’s mission is to create new perspectives and encourage a green transition by looking at ways of incorporating them in every construction project. “Our innovation model started in Norway, where government authorities created legal requirements for complex assignments very early on,” says Eriksson. “Our innovation process has helped several of our clients aim higher and reach even further than their initial goals.”

An example could be a successful collaboration between several parties within a specific project, exceeding the planned ideas. “Other benefits include financial profit, clever technical solutions when it comes to sustainability and, additional social achievements,” she elaborates.

In a world of uncertainty, Norconsult is moving against the current. They are expanding their architecture divisions in several Norconsult offices; next in line is their office in Malmö, in southern Sweden. One of their expanding markets is in healthcare. Eriksson tells us that several exciting projects are on the horizon with hospital projects in different regions of the country. “And our expertise in communal bathhouses is also something we’ve developed over a long period of time. We recently opened Täby bathhouse and we have several ongoing bathhouse projects.”

The staircase between the entrance halls at CIK, with sound-absorbing artwork on the walls.

A guiding light, or motto at Norconsult is: “Every day, we improve everyday life.” This means building a community: schools, healthcare, culture and places for human interactions. “We want to connect people who perhaps wouldn’t have met under other circumstances,” Eriksson says. “This is also socially sustainable for the future. To involve young and old, in buildings built for several purposes. You might be on your way to a martial arts course, and see a painting on the wall, or have coffee in the cafeteria with a senior citizen.”

One such example is CIK, Centrum för Idrott och Kultur (Centre for Sports and Culture). This is one of Norconsult’s most extensive projects regarding cross-expertise. “CIK won the architectural prize European Property Awards in the category of Mixed-use Architecture,” Eriksson concludes. “It’s also one of Sweden’s largest passive houses, meaning it is very energy efficient.”

At the core of the company’s approach to architecture is finding solutions that contribute to sustainable development. “We explore ways to use less materials by giving them a double purpose. For example, a beautiful wooden panel is used in a way that also improves the acoustics. In CIK we used wood as much as possible, but where concrete was needed, we didn’t cover it with ‘more beautiful’ materials.”