Djernes & Bell
Menu
News
Hedeskov Living Lab has been nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards 2026. Building as landscape—going beyond notions of reuse and circularity, this project explores a reparative approach of “making good” as a new architectural practice.

Work
The renovation of Reyneke Winery translates the vineyard’s biodynamic ethos into architecture rooted in geology and reuse. Fermentation tanks, invasive timbers, and steel pipes are reincorporated as new building elements, while biochar and wine marc enrich clay renders with antibacterial properties. The result is a winery where production, landscape, and material care form a continuous cycle.

News
Djernes & Bell has been selected to take part in the design competition for Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse 2.0. Over the coming months, four invited teams will develop creative proposals to reimagine the stair and lantern of this extraordinary landmark in the raw coastal landscape.

News
Djernes & Bell have been appointed to transform Foreningshuset Sundholm 8. Located within the historic Sundholm complex on Amager—once a municipal arbejdsanstalt (workhouse) and today a vibrant social and cultural quarter—the project aims to create an open, welcoming, and inclusive community house.

Work
Mejeriet i Torup is an adaptation and reuse of a 600 m² former dairy, later artist studio and residence, into a cultural centre for art, performance, and community. The project preserves the industrial and artistic character of the existing building while introducing minimal, carefully placed interventions that enable new functions and connections.

News
Students at KADK have recreated constructive details from Hedeskov Centre for Regenerative practice in 1:1 models, showcasing the use of site-based materials and the connections between old and new.

Work
Djernes & Bell have designed and built the entrance pavilion for Syd for Solen music-festival 2025. ‘City-Portal’ is conceived as both structure and ritual—a point of passage that marks the transition from the city to the temporary world of music, gathering, and collective experience. It takes its inspiration from Copenhagen’s historic city gates—Vesterport, Østerport, and Nørreport.
Explore

Djernes & Bell is an architectural practice based in Copenhagen with a special interest in what already exists: built, material, human, and natural. Founded in 2020 by architects Justine Bell and Jonas Djernes, the practice builds on the partners’ 15+ years experience working with transformation and restoration projects in Denmark and the UK.
Djernes & Bell work to preserve and improve existing built, natural, and social structures through reparative design, careful restoration, and the use of low-carbon materials. Cross-disciplinary methods fuse artistic and scientific research—from ancient crafts to ecological innovation. Intersecting material science, traditional building knowledge, and nature-based design, the practice transforms buildings and landscapes with the aim of supporting life in all its forms.
Collaborating across scientific, artistic, and civic sectors, Djernes & Bell bring extensive experience in adaptive reuse and transformation, working across both rural and urban contexts.
This website is a catalogue of the studio’s projects and working processes.
Djernes & Bell work across all stages of a project—from early concept and feasibility to detailed design, construction, and long-term adaptation. Architectural services include the reparative transformation and restorative reuse of existing buildings, as well as landscape strategies and low-carbon new construction systems. Each project is developed with a deep sensitivity to context, history, materials, and use, resulting in spatial solutions that are technically rigorous, materially grounded, and culturally meaningful.
Work often begins with strategic analysis, participatory workshops, and feasibility studies that bring users, stakeholders, and local communities into the design dialogue. This early-stage approach ensures that spatial strategies are rooted in real needs and the actual possibilities of a given site, creating long-term social and ecological value.
Alongside architectural design, Djernes & Bell engage in cross-disciplinary research into materials, agro-ecology, nature-based solutions, and restorative value chains. Material mapping, hands-on workshops, and experimental prototyping are used to develop innovative approaches to construction—from biobased materials and circular systems to the revival of traditional craft techniques.
Projects span both rural and urban contexts and often sit at the intersection of built environment, landscape, and community life. The aim is to create architecture that supports ecological resilience, strengthens local cultures, and enables places where life—human and more-than-human—can thrive.
Nyvej 16C, 1.sal
1851 Frederiksberg
Copenhagen
Team
- Justine BellArchitect / Founding Partner
- Jonas DjernesArchitect / Founding Partner
Awards
- EU Mies Award Nominee, HEdeskov Living Lab, 2026
- Dezeen Awards Longlist, Hedeskov Living Lab, Sustainability Category, 2025
- Renoverprisen, shortlist, 2025
- The Danish Arts Foundation, working grant, 2025
- The Architectural Review, New Into Old Award, shortlist, 2025
- Licitationen, Building Awards, finalist, 2024
- Danish Ministry of Culture, New National Architecture Policy, 2024
- The Danish Arts Foundation, working grant, 2024
- Realdania & Ny Carlsberg Fond, Stedet Tæller X, 2024
- Realdania, Funding for research & dissemination, 2023
- The Danish Arts Foundation, working grant, 2023
- Dreyers Foundation, START, 2022
- The Danish Arts Foundation, project grant, 2021
- Dreyers Foundation, new practice grant, 2020

We are always open to architects, students, and collaborators who want to be part of the rebalancing. If you see architecture as a means to repair, rethink, and regenerate—while shaping a more symbiotic future—we would love to hear from you.




Reyneke Biodynamic Winefarm
Stellenbosch, South Africa
The proposal for the renovation of the existing Reyneke Cellars is inspired by the land-caring and land-sparing practices of Reyeneke, rooted in the ground itself and following regenerative principles where architectural interventions are guided as much by the site’s material memory as by its future potential. Our design strategy centres on reuse and renewal: old fermentation tanks are cut and reassembled into steps, benches, and hardscape; on-site timber, invasive species and dismantled roof elements are reworked into shelving and joinery. We are investigating using site-made biochar and wine marc in new lime-clay wall renders, infusing both building and terroir with the residues of winemaking - and creating anti-bacterial interior surfaces. These acts of careful disassembly and material reincorporation are not just pragmatic—they are the mineral stories that mirror Reyneke’s biodynamic ethos.
The architecture unfolds around gravity-led winemaking flows and working courtyards that celebrate robust craftsmanship. Spatial sequences—vaulted barrel rooms, tactile tasting spaces, and open pressing yards—honour both the sensorial and the practical. The interventions are low-tech but deeply attentive: structures breathe through natural materials, cooling is supported by earthen plasters and shading cloth, and the patina of use is welcomed rather than erased. As architects, our task has been not to impose, but to listen—to the stone, the wood, the soil—and shape a winery that deepens the relationship between people, land-caring, and life.
Guided by what we call terroir tectonics, our approach weaves the architecture directly into Reyneke’s agro-regional context. The ancient decomposed granite of the Kuilsrivier batholith—formed over 600 million years ago—has weathered into kaolin-rich clays and granular soils that define both the vineyard’s viticulture and our material strategy. Boulders removed from the fields during farming are reincorporated into the buildings as sculptural elements and load-bearing supports. Combined with on-site biochar, these mineral-rich materials produce anti-fungal, anti-bacterial surfaces suited to the sensitive ecology of wine production.
Every intervention seeks resonance with the rhythms of place. Cabinet fronts and handrails are fashioned from the defunct stainless-steel pipes of the old cooling system—once purely utilitarian, now reimagined as elegant spatial details. Key vistas frame the surrounding hills, where fynbos restoration and organic vines speak of Reyneke’s commitment to ecological repair. In this way, the architecture becomes an extension of the farm’s regenerative thinking: slow, sensory, and grounded in care.
Tags
- Site-Based
- Materials
Year
2025-Ongoing
Size
4000 sqm + 180 ha
Photo
Adrianna Glaviano, Djernes & Bell
Illustrations
Djernes & Bell
Press
















