About us

Mikkelsen Architects is rooted in the Danish design tradition and seeks simple answers that respect and relate to their context. We seek responsible and sustainable solutions that create value for people and the climate.

Mikkelsen Architects was established by Stig Mikkelsen in 2012, and our designs are characterized by a humble yet ambitious approach. People are at the center—curiosity and accumulated knowledge about climate and materials inspire and drive the development of our architecture.

Close contact, courage, and creativity – value-creating processes

Mikkelsen Architects is founded on a strong team spirit and, through many completed projects, has gained extensive experience with development processes that translate interdisciplinary teamwork into creative value in projects, including the integration of social and CO2-reducing solutions. The firm has demonstrated a flair for quality, an understanding of materials and details, and the ability to maintain overall objectives throughout all phases in a long series of notable buildings.

The firm has developed special digital competencies for assessing environmental impacts, including analysis of materials.

Environments for collaboration, health, recreation, and exercise

Mikkelsen Architects has extensive experience with workplaces and complex buildings, including headquarters and multi-user buildings, as well as life science, laboratory, and research buildings. Specific projects at DTU, KU, RH, Ferring, and currently for Novo Nordisk and the University of Toronto, contribute to our ability to maintain and expand our knowledge in this field.

Social sustainability, including the importance of feeling at home, has been the focus at the Diabetes Centers in Herlev and Holbæk, built for the Capital Region. Under the heading "Who are we building for," the Danish Architects' Association, with funding from a foundation, has made a documentary film highlighting the project in Herlev: Common and waiting areas have been redesigned so that the architecture itself promotes a healthy lifestyle and turns waiting time into active time around the themes of diet, exercise, and education. Reassuring environments where daylight, overview, and views of green courtyards, combined with extensive use of wood, have contributed to defining and rethinking "healing" environments.

With people at the center, our work with housing and hotels is based on specific basic housing and social needs and the potential that lies in creating both secluded pockets and hierarchies and connections. We have specific housing and hotel projects in Sydhavnen, Nordhavnen, Valby, Hillerød, and Albertslund.

"Our design philosophy is based on fundamental ideas about innovation, sustainability and architecture. We learn from experience, take an open and creative approach to the challenges of the future and believe that good architecture makes a difference."

- Stig Mikkelsen

Cultural heritage, existing buildings, and reuse

We work with existing buildings, including the transformation and renovation of listed buildings. The necessity of preserving and the potential of understanding and reusing existing buildings is enormous, based solely on the value of reuse, but also because close contact with the building's origins and history fosters an exciting and relevant dialogue between the existing and the renovated or added architecture. Our work with listed and heritage buildings such as Damesalen, Keddelhallen, Maskincentralen, and Østre Kapel is based on "analysis," a fundamental respect, and solutions where new programs and concrete new architectural elements are brought into dialogue—extremely relevant to society.

The architecture of the 1960s and 70s is another field where a large amount of embedded CO2 and solid concrete structures, in some cases, open up opportunities for innovation, reuse, and utilization of additional load-bearing capacity through transformation. In our project to transform Albertslund Post Office, we are working on reusing concrete slabs that are cut free and utilized elsewhere in the project. This preservation-reuse-transformation mindset is also being implemented at Rigshospitalet and Hillerød Post Office, where we are working on technical updates through the reduction of thermal bridges, the integration of new programs, and transformative extensions.

Acknowledgements & awards 

Several of Mikkelsen Architects' buildings have received recognition and awards, including Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen (SDCC): ArchDaily Building of the Year 2024, Archello Healthcare Building of the Year 2023, Architizer A+Award 2022, and Tyndpladeprisen 2022. / Keddelhuset: Copenhagen Municipality Building Award 2025, Nominated for Arne of the Year 2025, Audience Award at Tyndpladeprisen 2025, Building of the Year 2025 / Thorvald Ellegaard Arena Odense: Architizer Awards 2016, Odense Municipality Architecture Award 2015 / ATP Vordingborg: Building Award 2013. / Frederikskaj: The European Copper in Architecture Award 2009 / Danmarks Radio, Segment 2: Awarded the Sol Prize 2006. / Danmarks Nationalbank: Glass staircase, awarded the G-Mark Award for Good Design 2002. / The Royal Library, University of Copenhagen Amager: Awarded the G-Mark Award 2001. Nominated for the Mies Van der Rohe Award

Sustainability in Scandinavia – Architectural Design and Planning, Harvard GSD / Rambøll headquarters, Ørestad, Copenhagen: DETAIL Work Environments 3/2011, Bauwelt 11/2011, Sustainable by Design 2050 (UIA), A5 Copenhagen (ORO Editions), Global Danish Architecture (Archipress M), Ecotech – Sustainable Architecture Today, Architecture Today 26 May 2011, The Architectural Review November 2010, Arkitekten / Dansehallerne, Copenhagen: Arkitekten, vol. 126, DBZ Magazine Building in Existing Structures / Ferring Pharmaceuticals headquarters and development center, Copenhagen: DETAIL Magazine, Smithsonian Channel How Did They Build That? / Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, Herlev: LANDSKAB Magazine no. 7, Danske Ark documentary series Who Are We Building For / Godthåbhallen, Nuuk, Greenland: Dagens Byggeri Nordatlanten / Laboratory and Logistics Building, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen: Politiken / Thorvald Ellegaard Arena, Odense: Arkitekten, March 2015.

The Eckersberg Medal was awarded to Stig Mikkelsen

Once a year, the Academy Council awards the Eckersberg Medal to architects and visual artists who have "made an effort of high artistic quality" in their field. The medals are presented by HM Queen Margrethe II at a ceremony at Charlottenborg Palace. The Academy awarded Stig Mikkelsen the Eckersberg Medal in 2022 with a laudatory motivation - some of it follows here:

“The works of architect Stig Mikkelsen are rooted in a Danish design tradition that stems from simplicity and contemporary responses to the great scarcity of our time: humble sensitivity to context. We see this when Mikkelsen, with necessary courage and empathetic sensitivity, has been behind gradual transformations of the National Bank, including a new glass staircase that, with Arne Jacobsen-like grace, unites the daylight between two floors of the building. We see it in the expansion and transformation of the Damesalen at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen, where a new floor has been added on top of the neoclassical building from 1923, allowing the past and present to nourish each other. We see this unfolded through the Laboratory and Logistics Building at Martin Nyrop's Bispebjerg Hospital, where the building's beautifully simplified and precise geometry unfolds with respect for the existing architecture. We see this in Odense, where Stig Mikkelsen reuses a landscape-buried facility in the Thorvald Ellegaard Arena. The new wooden track is covered by a membrane stretched over a minimalist structure. An outer softness envelops a rare inner lightness, where the structures and the track surface are experienced as one. The space is bathed in daylight. For this work, Stig Mikkelsen is awarded the Eckersberg Medal.