Unique solutions for urban balconies and terraces. Even in an apartment block in the middle of a dense city, it is possible through careful design to feel connected to nature.

Recently I have noticed that there is an astonishing number of boring balconies in the city. I live and work in Oslo, but this observation applies to pretty much all modern cities. Such balconies can be found everywhere: uninteresting concrete plates that protrude from the sides of apartment blocks like ruffled pages from a notebook, usually without any plants and without any real spatial qualities or character. In the best of cases the inhabitants have set out a couple of patio chairs and a small table on them, but most often these balconies are empty spaces exposed to noise and wind that have been hung onto the side of buildings as an afterthought, and they become completely unpleasant whenever the sun disappears. I have always considered it somewhat insulting that this type of standard balcony is considered to be an acceptable outdoor area for apartment-dwellers that have a home high up in the air.

It is possible to do significantly more with the average balcony, such that it becomes a comfortable, rejuvenating outdoor space that is a valuable part of an apartment. Boring balconies can become lush floating gardens and wonderful outdoor rooms. Even with disadvantageous orientation, poor noise conditions or a lack of size, something out of the ordinary can always be done with them to make them beautiful.

Apartment buildings tend to present standardised facades to the surroundings, despite the fact that they are all inhabited by incredibly different human beings. It is unfortunate that so little of this uniqueness becomes visible on the outside! In addition to the obvious possibilities of the interiors, a balcony can become a customisable space in a multi-family house that expresses some personality to the world. With solutions for noise protection, shelter from the wind, plants, water and outdoor living, I intend to design balconies that say something meaningful about all of the different people that own them.

I have created a new design service to do just this: I take a boring balcony, and turn it into a comfortable outdoor place. My intention is to design a balcony or terrace such that it becomes a useful outdoor room that is a key part of any apartment, regardless of what level it lies on. I call this service so far «Floating Forests», because I believe that it is possible with the introduction of plants, stones, water and natural materials to invoke the presence of nature even in the smallest urban spaces. Regardless of how high over the earth you live, I want you to feel connected to nature and live in a small forest.

I have created an information page for this new focus area here. It will be exciting to work with more of these types of spaces in the times ahead!

Now that I think about it, the inspiration for this idea perhaps started a long time ago while studying Soviet modernist design (one of my niche interests). In post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, it is common to find unbelievably neat personal modifications that inhabitants have made to standardized balconies. Some have been enclosed completely to create another room in the apartment, while others have been turned into small greenhouses to grow vegetables. Seen from the outside, many of them often present a completely different form in comparison to the building that they are attached to, and they become unique little expressions of individual life across the facade. This is the kind of thing that many architects hate (laughs). It is on the other hand a lovely example of how customization can create personality within a mass-produced, standardized framework. 

I highly recommend the short documentary «Enter Through the Balcony» (2020, director Roman Blazhan) which examines the balcony as a small architectural form:  https://takflix.com/en/films/enter-through-the-balcony. I hope also that you will contact me if you happen to be someone that lives in an apartment and has a boring balcony that you would like to transform into a personal outdoor room with character.

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