Studio Olafur Eliasson was founded in 1995 by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Based in Berlin, the studio currently comprises about 90 people, from architects, craftsmen, and specialised technicians, to art historians and archivists. Working closely with the artist, the studio team engages in experiments; develops, designs, and produces artworks, exhibitions, and architectural projects; and communicates and contextualises Eliasson's work. Further architectural projects include the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, London, with Kjetil Thorsen;Your rainbow panorama, for ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2011; and the Harpa concert hall & conference center in Reykjavik, Iceland, for which Studio Olafur Eliasson, together with Henning Larsen Architects and Batteríid architects, received the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013.
Established in 2009, the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments) is an educational research project initiated by Olafur Eliasson, and is affiliated with the College of Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). The school is run by Olafur Eliasson together with Eric Ellingsen and Christina Werner, and runs for five years until Spring 2014. The institute is housed within the studio building, and plays an integral part within the dynamic of the studio's creative activities:
The program of the Institut für Raumexperimente - including lectures, workshops and experiments - is a part of the curriculum of the professor's class. A full archive of past events is available on the website.
An in-house production, TYT (Take Your Time) presents current research and projects by Olafur Eliasson and the studio in the format of an intermittently recurring magazine, with an emphasis on the process of developing and testing ideas and artworks. First published in 2007, Studio Olafur Eliasson has published three volumes to date, all available as PDF download in addition to physical publication:
Almost annually since 2006, Studio Olafur Eliasson has hosted a get-together called Life is space (formerly Life in space). Loosely scheduled as a day-long event largely left to intuition and chance, Life is space brings together scientists, artists, scholars, dancers, theorists, spatial practitioners, and movement experts, together with the Institut für Raumexperimente participants and the studio team to share, discuss, present, and experiment.