Concrete grid tower against a pale sky

North & Key — Atelier for architecture & interiors

We design
the rooms people
remember.

Private commissions for residential and cultural clients. Zürich · London · Kyoto.

Rotunda interior lit entirely from above

A building is judged in its rooms — in the weight of a door, the fall of afternoon light, the temperature of stone underfoot. We work slowly, take few commissions, and stay through the last hinge.

01 Selected works

Four rooms,
four truths.

2016 — 2026 · Complete list on request

Sondersee House — timber volume standing over still alpine water
W.01

Sondersee
House

340t of board-formed concrete, poured in eleven lifts against rough-sawn spruce.

Private residence · Lake Zürich · 2023

The Lantern Archive — pale stone hall lit from clerestory height
W.02

The Lantern
Archive

A reading hall lit by a single 22m clerestory — no other window, no artificial light before dusk.

Cultural · Manuscript archive, Kyoto · 2021

Ridgeline Pavilion — ribbed hall sweeping in one clear span
W.03

Ridgeline
Pavilion

A 28m clear-span Douglas-fir frame. Every connection concealed; zero visible fasteners.

Concert pavilion · Cumbria · 2019

Vault & Garden — pale stone arches receding under even toplight
W.04

Vault &
Garden

Roman travertine in 40mm book-matched slabs; one oculus, cut to the noon of the summer solstice.

Private gallery house · Umbria · 2017

02 Method

Four disciplines,
in order.

  1. 01

    Brief

    We begin with how you live, not what you want built. Three sittings, no drawings. The brief is written in rooms and hours, never in square metres.

  2. 02

    Structure

    Structure is the first act of interior design. Load paths are chosen for the spaces they leave behind — a beam placed once, correctly, needs no ceiling to hide it.

  3. 03

    Light

    Every principal room is modelled through a full solar year before a window is fixed. We design the shadow first; the opening follows.

  4. 04

    Detail

    The hand touches a building in a dozen places. Those dozen — the pull, the rail, the switch, the sill — are drawn at full scale and prototyped in the workshop.

Drawing board at the atelier
03 Practice

North & Key is a fourteen-person atelier founded in 2011 by Maren Nordvik and Elias Key. We accept five commissions a year. Architecture and interiors are drawn by the same hands, from the site plan to the door pull — because a room remembered is never an accident of finishes.

5 Commissions a year
14 Architects & makers
0 Projects left unfinished
Dark timber house glowing from within at dusk

04 Begin

Request a conversation.

We reply within two working days, in writing. First meetings are held on site or at the atelier — never over a deck of slides.

atelier@northandkey.com