Our B5 was created in collaboration with the renowned architecture firm Studio Other Spaces. How does the office around Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann work? What characterizes their architecture? Find out more in the editorial by editor-in-chief Fabian Peters.
Cover photo: Michael Tsegaye
Premiere for the Baumeister
We are celebrating a premiere with this issue: We have decided to add a “little brother” to our annual Curated issue (this year with UN Studio). In B5/2023, Studio Other Spaces from Berlin has designed a 26-page special section. Studio Other Spaces – that’s world-famous artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann. The two have been causing a stir in the architecture scene for more than a decade – with projects such as the Serpentine Pavilion from 2007, the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik and the Fjordenhus in Vejle, Denmark. These buildings were all launched under the umbrella of Studio Olafur Eliasson. Eliasson and Behmann have been operating as an architecture firm under the new name since 2014.
New perspectives
Studio Other Spaces is one of the most exciting offices of the moment. There are a number of reasons for this. The team around Behmann and Eliasson works with the most ambitious technology, highly situational, interdisciplinary and effortlessly manages the balancing act between experimental geometry and traditional construction methods. The diversity of the results is hardly surprising. What all the projects have in common, however, is the new perspective that Studio Other Spaces aims to open up with its architecture on the environment. Environment – this means the specific building site and its surroundings as well as the world as a whole. Studio Other Spaces documents the very different concepts that the architecture firm has developed in order to achieve this goal, and how important it is to take a close look at the respective local conditions, and not just in the special section they have designed. Sebastian Behmann and Olafur Eliasson also explain it in depth in our big interview starting on page 8. Another first: not only can you read the interview in the magazine, you will soon also be able to watch it online as a video.
The design issue with Studio Other Spaces is now available in the store: B5/23 Design. You can find out more about Studio Other Spaces and their projects here in our big online special.
Our April issue is all about the future of building: what changes and innovations will the future bring to construction? Which technologies will prevail and what upheavals do we need to prepare for? Find out more in the editorial.
