Djernes & Bell
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The renovation of Reyneke Winery has begun. Old concrete fermentation tanks are being cut, reused, and reassembled — transforming the cellar into a new visitor and tasting sequence rooted in reuse.

Work
Drawing on the Wadden Sea’s dynamic ecosystem, the participants develop performances, narratives, sculptures, and installations that work directly in and with a landscape shaped by tides, wind, and human stewardship.

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.

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.

Work
The Hedeskov Centre for Regenerative Practice Living Lab is the transformation of a former rural school in Djursland through a tectonic and bio-regional approach, embedding the building within its geological and ecological context. The project embraces the principle of ‘making good,’ prioritizing repair, material circularity, and the integration of hyper-local and up-cycled materials over demolition and new construction.
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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. Please note that we receive many thoughtful applications, and unfortunately we’re not able to reply to every one.


Wadden Tide
Blåvand, Denmark
The title of the exhibition is inspired by the Wadden Sea tradition, ‘We bring in the tide’, which is held each year in Ballum and celebrates the marshland and the tides. An experience program kicks off the Wadden Tide season on May 4 and offers activities that audiences can take part in throughout the summer. On August 22, the exhibition culminates with installations, sculptures, and performances on Blåvand Beach.
The exhibition brings together visual artists, architects, landscape architects, writers, and dancers from the Nordic region and the North Atlantic in a shared space of inquiry. Drawing on the Wadden Sea’s dynamic ecosystem, the participants develop performances, narratives, sculptures, and installations that work directly in and with a landscape shaped by tides, wind, and human stewardship.
Through site-specific works, the exhibition opens up new relationships with the Wadden Sea ecosystem – sand, sea, tides, marshland, and birdlife – and invites a more embodied and situated understanding of how we perceive, experience, and live with a fragile and regulated ecosystem. With six out of twelve works in total, performative practices have been given greater prominence in the program, reflecting a desire to work directly with the changing landscape, the cycles of nature, and time.
Bringing In The Tide, Wadden Tide 2026 builds on First There Is A Mountain, Wadden Tide 2023, which explored sand as a formative force of Blåvandshuk through nine site-specific artworks. Both exhibitions are curated by the curatorial duo Empathic Environments, consisting of Stenka Hellfach and Tyra Dokkedahl.
Wadden Tide previously took place in 2014, 2016, and 2019 as part of the Wadden Sea Cultural Region. In 2021, Varde Municipality took over Wadden Tide as part of the municipality’s strategic focus on cultural tourism. The aim is for Wadden Tide to become known locally, nationally, and internationally as a free outdoor exhibition featuring innovative art that addresses some of the most important questions of our time in a local context.
Wadden Tide is supported by Varde Municipality, the Varde Municipal Council Art Committee, the Region of Southern Denmark, Den Jyske Kunstfond, the Agency for Culture and Palaces, the Wadden Sea National Park, the Danish Arts Foundation, the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation, the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Obel Family Foundation, and the Augustinus Foundation.
Deltagande kunstnere
Amitai Romm (DK)
Djernes & Bell (DK/UK)
Andri Snær Magnason (I)
Ava Samii (DK)
AVPD (DK)
David Garcia (DK)
Faun Vium (DK)
Therese Bülow (DK)
Jessie Kleemann (GL)
Juha Pekka Matias Laakkonen (FI)
Nana Francisca Schottländer (DK)
Sophie Sahlqvist (S)
New Mineral Collective (NO)
Rammatik (FO)




