BUILDINGS THAT MEAN WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.
Konkret is an architecture and industrial-design studio working on civic buildings, public infrastructure, and objects of daily use. We design slow things — schools, libraries, halls, benches — for clients who plan to keep them.
Selected work, 2018 — 2026.
01 / KUNSTHAUS HALDEN
GALLERY · 2024A 1,200 m² public gallery cut into the slope above Lake Halden. Cast in-situ concrete, raw oak floors, no paint.
02 / BIBLIOTHEK MITTE
CIVIC · 2023A district library on a former tram depot. Steel grid, polycarbonate cladding, plywood reading carrels.
03 / TRAMHAUS NORD
INFRASTRUCTURE · 2023A new terminus for the city tram network. Twelve concrete piers, a board-formed canopy, two benches.
04 / WOHNHAUS K7
HOUSING · 2022A nineteen-unit cooperative on an awkward corner site. Loadbearing CLT, exposed services, no balconies.
05 / OBJEKT 09 — BANK
OBJECT · 2024A public bench cast from recycled aggregate. 2.4 metres long. Specified for three Swiss municipalities.
06 / SCHULE WALDEGG
EDUCATION · 2025A primary school for 240 children built in cross-laminated timber and rammed earth. Currently in construction.
Honesty over harmony.
We design buildings that mean what they look like. The structure should be visible. The material should be itself. The function should be legible from the street. We use concrete because it is concrete, timber because it is timber, steel because it is steel — not because the rendering said so.
A building is a slow object. It outlives its designers, its clients, and most of its users. It carries the energy and labour of a small village in its walls. We design with that mass in mind. Nothing is added unless it earns its weight.
Decoration is honest only when it is structural. Ornament is honest only when it is wear. The rest is theatre. We have no objection to theatre — we just do not build it.
Eleven people, three cities, one practice.
ANNI BERGER
PARTNER · ARCHITECT
TOBIAS RUUD
PARTNER · INDUSTRIAL
IRENE FALCO
ASSOCIATE · MILANO
KASPER LUND
PROJECT LEADSelected press & accolades.
"A studio that builds the way other studios talk about building."
2025"Konkret’s Kunsthaus Halden is the most disciplined civic building in the canton."
2024"Severe in the right places. Generous in the surprising ones."
2024"Tramhaus Nord turns a transit stop into a piece of civic furniture."
2023"Quietly the best small practice in the German-speaking world."
2023"They take the long-life view: ten years to design, a hundred years to use."
2022Have a brief?
We answer commission emails personally within 5 working days.