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Mette Lange: The Dream of the Close

There is a clear line throughout Mette Lange's career and architectural expression. Here, she puts words to her inspiration, architecture, engagement in India, and much more.

By Dansk Arkitektur Center

Mette Lange Architects is a small studio with Mette Lange at the core, surrounded by students and collaborators as amplifiers and assurances of renewal. Mette Lange is the self-elected sole employee in the architectural firm because it provides the flexibility and freedom that allows for constant professional and physical development.

The professional development takes place by challenging oneself in every new project, and physically, Mette Lange continuously moves between Denmark and India.

  • About Mette Lange Architects

    Mette Lange Architects is owned and run by Mette Lange, an architect MAA. She graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture in 1990 and has had her own office since 2002.

    Mette Lange's architecture is found in smaller buildings, where the potential of the place and the person are always the center. Most projects are closely linked to nature. Over time, Mette Lange Architects has specialized in summer houses, and the studio is behind many projects at home and abroad.

    In addition to designing unique houses, Mette Lange has, in collaboration with her partner, master carpenter Christin Rejnhold, developed the Mini House, which is a modular summer house where the proportions and construction are determined in advance.

    The Mini House was developed with a strong focus on sustainability and 'simple living'. It is a relatively economical choice, both in terms of architect's fees and construction costs. Having the Mini House as an important part of the studio's work also means that the studio has a broader reach, which is important to Mette Lange.

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Eliciting space

The studio has ongoing projects where the building forms a courtyard around an existing tree on a forest site. The fundamental conditions that the studio works with are: the place, structure, proportions, materiality, light, and poetry.

”We want to focus on values such as placing humans at the center, gentle presence, poetry, playing with light and space, as well as an inclusive approach to the process and a love for architecture and nature,” says architect Mette Lange.

Always out in reality

Mette Lange Architect works with housing in the landscape. The specialty is summer houses, which for the clients contain the dream of the close and simple. The focal point in all the studio's projects is the place, and both the process and the final project always operate on those premises.

”The work as an architect has largely become something that takes place behind a screen, and we challenge that trend. We start all tasks by spending three days on the site where the project is located. Here we make precise recordings of the view, the trees, the light, and the movement of the sun. At the same time, we sketch and make volume studies on an already prepared landscape model,” says Mette Lange.

It is this interaction between presence on the site, recordings, one-to-one layouts, and dialogue with the client on the spot that has become the specialty of Mette Lange Architects when a task begins. The working method is so deeply rooted that it accompanies Mette Lange everywhere. Also in India.

"We want to focus on values such as placing humans at the center, gentle presence, poetry, playing with light and space, as well as an inclusive approach to the process and a love for architecture and nature"

Close ties to India

For the experienced architect, professional work and private life are inseparably linked, and therein lies the background for the Indian engagement. Out of love for the country, Mette Lange has had a house there for almost two decades. When it was newly built, Mette Lange and her then-husband, Anders Linnet, became aware of the casual laborers digging sand out of the river nearby.

”Children ran barefoot, and the families were migrant workers from the neighboring state who did not speak the local language. Anders Linnet founded the first MovingSchool in 2001. These are schools that go to the children and have grown over the years,” she explains.

More support

Mette Lange is now responsible for securing support for the projects and is the architect behind floating and rolling schools in the state of Goa. Currently, Mette Lange Architects has collaborated with Henning Larsen on three classrooms for a Muslim fishing community that spends eight months of the year in a barren Indian salt desert in Kutch, Gujarat.

”It has been enriching to collaborate with such a large architectural firm. Henning Larsen has supported the project financially and engaged in the design to get closer. These projects in India are an adventure. It is rewarding to do something for children – and I have always received a lot in return through all the talented and dedicated people I meet. It gives hope for the future in a country like India,” says Mette Lange.

Threads gathered

The upcoming classrooms in India are arranged around a tree, as a symbol that everything can grow. The architect explains:

”Trees are wonderful and beautiful, and for me, it always revolves around highlighting the gifts a place has. The house should be a backdrop to nature. This is also the case when we create summer houses. Behind it often lies the dream of the simple life, memories, Ludo games in the rain, and the light's play with the leaves of the trees. It's about being close to nature – and each other.”

From schools in India to summer houses in Denmark, architecture is always created in harmony with the surroundings, and that is what brings together the threads in Mette Lange's work.

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