Studio Other Spaces

Studio Other Spaces (SOS), founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann in Berlin in 2014, connects architecture and art through interdisciplinary and experimental building projects and artworks for public space. Their shared interest in spatial experimentation led them to the holistic approach that defines Studio Other Spaces. In their work, they continuously move between overall perspectives and a highly detail-oriented level, exploring all aspects of a project through each stage of development – from inception to its life and reuse. SOS projects foreground the atmospheric and intangible qualities of their specific locations, approach materiality through research and experimentation, and emphasise physical movement as a means to shape space.

Recent projects include Common Sky (2019–2023), a canopy of glass and mirrors for the courtyard of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; the wine-tasting pavilion Vertical Panorama Pavilion (2020–22) for the Donum Estate in Sonoma, California; The Seeing City (2015–22), a site-specific, permanent artistic installation designed for the top two floors of the Morland Mixité Capitale building in Paris, France; the design of Lyst Restaurant (2019) in Vejle’s Fjordenhus; and the Meles Zenawi Memorial Park (2013–) in Addis Ababa, a campus comprising five buildings, several pavilions, and a park, conceived and built with Ethiopian partners and in collaboration with Vogt Landscape Architects.

The studio’s first solo exhibition, titled The Design of Collaboration, was on display at Kunst Meran Merano Arte in South Tyrol, Italy, from September 2020 through January 2021. As part of curator Hashim Sarkis’s exhibition in the Central Pavilion for Biennale Architettura 2021, SOS collaborated with six co-designers to present Future Assembly, a more-than-human gathering inspired by the United Nations.