Diploma

Nicholas Coates

Erik Langdalen is a practicing architect and a professor of architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. 

 is an award-winning office specialized on the preservation and transformation of historic buildings, including the Eero Saarinen designed US Embassy in Oslo (2023), the Magnus Poulsson designed Dombås Church (2023), and the soon to be opened Karl Norum-designed Posten Moderne Museum of Contemporary Art in Trondheim, as well as a number of heritage sites across Norway. His teaching and research focus on the recent past, specializing on concrete architecture, buildings systems and components. Erik is in charge of the Re-Store course portfolio, investigating how architectural education needs to respond to the climate crises through the reuse, preservation and transformation of what is already built. Since 2021, his teaching has engaged the concept of provenance in a number of master studios and seminars. His books include 

Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Voices from the Archive

 (2021). He is the owner of the cultural center 

. Erik holds a Diploma of Architecture from AHO and a M.ARCH AAD from Columbia University GSAPP.

Erik Fenstad Langdalen

Diploma fall 2022

Tryvannstårnet Ascending Decending

Towards material independence – Akranes cement factory

The scarcity and even absence of local construction materials has made Icelanders dependent on imports from other European countries; timber from Norway, corrugated steel from Britain and cement from Denmark. Located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Iceland is exposed to harsh climate and earthquakes. This demands high quality buildings strong enough to withstand the geologic activity. The search for a construction material that was able to withstand the Icelandic climate conditions was found in concrete in the late 19th century. Concrete soon became the most used construction material continuing to present day. However, the Icelanders were for decades still dependent on the import of the binding agent in concrete: cement. It wasn’t until after the union with Denmark was dissolved in 1944 that the Icelanders decided to build the country’s first and only cement factory, producing the only missing compound to become material independent from the rest of the world.

Radio Remnants

RULE THE (M)ALL - a protection order for the rural mall

With a focus on the mall as an important meeting place in the local community,
“RULE THE(M)ALL” is a diploma project that explore the typology of the rural mall through the lens of cultural heritage.


Our approach is based on empirical research done through a field trip, as well as theoretical and archival research. We mapped a section of malls across Norway in the urban and architectural scale, then exploring one mall in particular through model making and using regulations as arhictectural tools.

From Noun to Verb – Changing architectural vocabularies

This master’s thesis originates from two things. First, from a list of words that I collected in my research for a diploma project on building transformation, and second, from a feeling of disappointment with my architectural education. How a diploma project about a building, and a potential transformation, became a project about words will perhaps be revealed through further reading – but my disappointment will not – and requires a complete loop to the beginning.

Byggesak 201912777

In face with a building industry which is increasingly occupied with
the reuse of existing buildings and components, this project wishes
to explore how values are attributed to architectural objects through
relocation, mediation and reproduction.

In 2020, two concrete reliefs, Fiskerne and Måken, weighing in total
over 250 tons, were moved 50 meters from the now demolished
Y-block to a place they will rest for around ten years before they will
be moved to their next resting place, the not yet built A-block. The
move itself took 45 minutes. A temporary storage structure, not unlike
the wooden crates used to store and transport valuable art objects,
or the vitrines such objects are often exhibited in, was erected to
protect The Fishermen and The Seagull during transit. Already during
the application process a profound connection between the storage
structures and the artwork they frame was created. The first e-mail
registered in Saksinnsyn, sent by Architect Ole Tørklep from Nordic -
office of architecture says the following: «Vedlagt oversendes søknad
om tillatelse til tiltak for ‘Picassoboksene’» The Picasso Boxes.In this project, the boxes have become a prism through which I have looked at memory and monuments, and the cult which creates them.
It has resulted in a series of entangled investigations which attempt to
transform the structure through multiple mediations:

Mobile Heritage: Preserving Architecture on the Move

In August 2022, I received a copy of the keys to this building, a pavilion located right next to the three-lane highway E18 at Lysaker. After having seen the building from the highway a few months earlier and becoming curious about it, I went to take a closer look. The first thing that met my eye was the building’s outer skin, a facetted but strict aluminum structure with four large, highly reflective windows on each side of the main volume, resting on a cone-shaped glass floor. It was dusty, dilapidated, with punctured windows, and appeared as a futuristic ruin. I reached out to the owner, who was excited about my enthusiasm and made a great effort for me to study the building closer by giving me full access and a copy of the key.

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