Foss & Gray
Sheet 01 / 05 · Site section, Birkelia AnnexFG-2201 · Looking NE · Jan 2026
Sheet 02 / 05 · Studio
The slope sets the section.
Vindsletta House: the section steps down the hill, so each level meets the ground at its own height.
The sun places the openings.
Birkelia Annex: one window, facing south-west.
The wind decides where you enter.
Fjellrev Cabin: the door is on the lee side.
The neighbour’s view decides what stays low.
Sørenga Harbour Sauna: one storey, so the flats behind keep the fjord.
Sheet 03 / 05 · Selected works
Each plate is drawn first, traced from its own photograph, then cut open along a section line to the photograph it came from. The drawing and the building meet at the cut, because one was taken from the other.
Sheet 03 · Selected worksPlate 01 / 03
FG-2308 · Sheet 03.1
The ridge kept its profile. The roof runs parallel to the ground it sits in; the bedrooms sit low in the slope and the living room climbs to the light and the fjord.
Roofline follows the ridge
Sightline to the fjord kept
Sheet 03 · Selected worksPlate 02 / 03
FG-2402 · Sheet 03.2
Four steel points on bedrock, no blasting. The snow passes under the floor instead of drifting against the walls, and the door is on the lee side, away from it.
Footings: four points, no blasting
Snow passes beneath the floor
Sheet 03 · Selected worksPlate 03 / 03
FG-2417 · Sheet 03.3
A public room at water level: charred spruce outside, pale aspen within, eighteen bathers at a time, on piles set for a tide that moves 0.4 m either side of mean.
Charred spruce cladding
Tide range ± 0.4 m
| Job | Project | Site | Year | m², to scale | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eldhus Community Hall | 410 | Drawing | |||
| Sørenga Harbour Sauna | 92 | Completed | |||
| Fjellrev Cabin | 64 | Completed | |||
| Vindsletta House | 187 | Completed | |||
| Birkelia Annex | 41 | Completed | |||
| Hellvik Ferry Shelter | 28 | Completed |
Sheet 04 / 05 · Process
01 · Feb 2022
We walk the plot before we draw a line: levels, the sun's path through the year, the prevailing wind, where the snow drifts, what the neighbours see. At Birkelia that was two visits in February, one at noon and one at dusk.
02 · Mar 2022
Position and section come first, in soft pencil; the plan follows once the section works. Birkelia's floor was set at the crest's high point, so its one room looks down the slope.
03 · May 2022
Junctions at 1:5: the sill on its steel base plate, the plate on its pin, the pin grouted into the rock. All four footings are drawn, because each one stands on different ground.
04 · Aug–Nov 2022
One of us is on site every week of the build, and the builder's calls are answered the same day. Birkelia went up the slope in panels carried by hand: a machine could not reach the crest without taking out birches.
Sheet 05 / 05 · People
Nine architects at one 4.8-metre table on Maridalsveien, numbered in the order they joined, from Marit Foss and Halvor Gray in 2014 to Agnes Lium, who also builds the models. Everyone who draws a building walks its site first.
Annex A · Project enquiry
Eight or ten projects a year is all nine of us can draw properly, so we read every enquiry and answer each one, including the ones we turn down. Write before the plot is final if you can: the first meeting is a walk on the plot, and there is no fee for it.
