House of NUDA
House of NUDA – From Nordic Roots to a Global Arena
In 2005, I began shaping what would become House of NUDA – not just an association, but a home for ideas too big to fit within silos. The ambition was clear: create a living arena where cities, buildings, people, and technology could meet on equal terms. A place to challenge established thinking, to spark collaborations, and to move from vision to action.
From 2006 to 2011, NUDA built a reputation as one of the most forward-looking platforms in the Nordics. These were not ordinary conferences. They were cross-pollination laboratories where planners, architects, community leaders, technologists, and policymakers tested ideas, shared failures, and imagined futures that few dared to articulate. By 2012, NUDA expanded into European networks through EU and EEA projects, embedding our approach into complex, cross-border initiatives. What emerged was not just an event series, but a method: systems thinking, creativity, and dialogue as tools to shape better cities. Today, House of NUDA enters a new chapter bringing our legacy into a global framework merging three dimensions:
Knowledge – anchored in my upcoming book IDEAS – Connecting Cities, Buildings, People and Technology, the backbone for a broader publishing series.
Technology – through Ideator™ COS, a cognitive tool designed to amplify human creativity rather than replace it.
Networks – renewed partnerships and alliances that connect local challenges to global intelligence.
From the first Nordic conference in 2006 to AI-enhanced ideation in 2025, House of NUDA has always been about one thing: connecting vision with implementation, and ideas with impact – called Strategic Urban Intelligence for a connected world.
What follows is not a sales brochure. It is a concise map of the competence I have built over two decades — seleced samples of projects I have initiated, led and contributed to — illustrating the thinking that underpins my book IDEAS and the methodology behind Ideator™ COS. House of NUDA is my personal research and publishing platform: independent, non-commercial, and not a consultancy. Below are a few selected examples.
Strategic Urban Intelligence
Airport City illustrated above, is one project example where Strategic Urban Intelligence was used as methodological frame.
I study cities, buildings, people, and technology as one interdependent system rather than as parallel tracks. My work maps flows of value, regulation, data, and everyday life to locate leverage points where modest interventions shift larger outcomes. The aim is to replace fragmented decision-making with shared mental models that align purpose, incentives, and time horizons. This competence shapes how I write about resilience, equity, and competitiveness as mutually reinforcing—not competing—goals. It underpins both the narrative architecture of IDEAS and the way Ideator™ structures complex problem spaces.
The Airport City was a development and research initiative carried out from 2021 to 2024. The project was initiated by Multiconsult AS in collaboration with the Municipality of Ullensaker, with the aim of exploring how the Airport City of the future could be envisioned, function and evolve in connection with Oslo Airport Gardermoen. Håkon Iversen took over the project in 2022 and brought in Professor Thomas Brekke from the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN).
Project owners: Multiconsult, LINK Arkitektur AS and the Municipality of Ullensaker
Project lead: Håkon Iversen, LINK
Research: Prof. Thomas Brekke, USN
Urban Typology Innovation
Stad Ship Tunnel visualized above, is one project example where New Urban Typology is put to the test through innovation:
I explore how blending typologies, such as —port cities, innovation districts, and airport cities—creates hybrid urban models that are more adaptive than any single form. The focus is on fusing functions (logistics+knowledge, mobility+culture, infrastructure+everyday life) to generate identity, investment readiness, and inclusion at once. Rather than copying shapes, I examine how governance, economics, and community needs reconfigure space over time. This perspective informs my chapters on typological synthesis and the “architecture of place,” and it provides testable patterns that Ideator™ can map across contexts.
Stad Ship Tunnel is a planned project to construct the world’s first full-scale ship tunnel through the Stad Peninsula, though it has faced financial challenges. The tunnel aims to provide safer and more efficient maritime transport past the weather-exposed Stadhavet coastline, reducing travel time, fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. LINK Arkitektur AS designed an exceptionally innovative Architecture of Place concept, serving as the portal on both sides of the tunnel.
Project owner: Norwegian Coastal Administration (Kystverket)
Previous project lead: Multiconsult AS
Architectural lead: LINK Arkitektur AS – Håkon Iversen
Sustainable Transformation Architecture
D1012 interior photo above, is the first project testing TOR as method:
My architectural stance prioritises transformation over demolition: treat existing structures as assets, not liabilities. Through the TOR logic (Transform, Optimal Reuse, Recycle), I catalogue decisions that preserve embodied carbon, extend building life, and meet regulatory and financial constraints without losing character. I document where high-value reuse should lead and where targeted recycling makes sense, translating sustainability from slogan to practice. This competence surfaces across IDEAS and case reflections, while informing Ideator™ workflows for lifecycle thinking and value retention.
D1012 represents a new and highly efficient approach to building rehabilitation. The development of the TOR method originated from the need for a framework tailored to mid-segment property developers who lack large portfolios and financial capacity. These actors face the same taxonomy requirements as major developers, yet must rehabilitate more efficiently to achieve comparable sustainability goals. The LINK Arkitektur Bergen office, which I lead, became the first pilot project for TOR — with clear success.
Project owner: Dreggsallmenningen 10–12
Project lead: LINK Arkitektur AS
Project initiative: Håkon Iversen
Cross-Disciplinary Leadership
The image above shows the agreement between myself and the former Prime Minister of Tonga, sealed with a handshake in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2023.
Much of my work happens in the spaces between disciplines—architecture, technology, governance, finance, and culture. I design conversations that translate across vocabularies, surface shared interests, and turn expertise into joint action. The emphasis is on synthesis rather than dominance: building coalitions that can make decisions under uncertainty without collapsing into lowest-common-denominator compromises. In IDEAS, this appears as stories of bridge-building; in Ideator™, it becomes process design for alignment and accountable follow-through.
Re-Building the Kingdom of Tonga is a long-term initiative that I have written extensively about in IDEAS. It challenges leadership across cultures, nationalities and professional boundaries. Much like the EU and EEA projects I have authored and led, these processes are ultimately more about diplomacy than discipline. Navigating the many corridors of diplomacy across the globe — as a private individual — is an exceptionally valuable exercise that enriches knowledge, strengthens competence and expands one’s understanding of the forces that truly shape global politics and development.
Project owner: Feleti Ita Group AS
Project lead: Håkon Iversen
Strategic Idea Development
Above photo was taken in 2017 during the handover of the Master Content Plan for Ethnographic Museum of Cluj-Napoca.
Ideas scale only when they gain structure. I develop methods—MCP (Master Content Plan), SgD (Symbiotic generative Dialogue), and Ideator™—that map, connect, and prioritise concepts into living strategies. The workflow moves from ambiguity to options, from options to decisions, and from decisions to implementation—while keeping origin, reasoning, and ethics visible. This competence is as much editorial as strategic: it turns scattered insight into coherent paths that others can understand, critique, and build upon.
The Master Content Plan (MCP) was a comprehensive method I developed during the EEA-funded work in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from 2014 to 2018. What began as a small cultural initiative was expanded into a full-scale masterplan for cultural, urban and regional development. Strategic idea development formed the foundation, where we combined Strategic Urban Intelligence, Urban Typology Innovation and Cross-Disciplinary Leadership into what the Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway ranked as one of the ten best EEA projects carried out between 2008 and 2018 — a recognition that was highly appreciated by the former Mayor of Cluj-Napoca during the handover of the completed plan.
Project owner: The Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca
Project lead: Håkon Iversen, NUDA
Project support: Trond Tystad, CARDO
Narrative & Knowledge Architecture
The image above shows Stord town centre, which was the subject of the Pilot-T research project referenced below.
Complex work needs a spine. I craft narratives that hold research, practice, and strategy together so different audiences can see both the “why” and the “how.” The output ranges from book-length arguments to briefings and talks, but the intent is constant: create a through-line that carries decisions and partnerships without flattening nuance. In IDEAS, narrative becomes infrastructure; in Ideator™, it becomes a repeatable pattern for turning knowledge into action.
In 2019, I initiated the Mobility Roadmap project in Moss, in collaboration with the Municipality of Moss and Høyda Utvikling. In 2021, my team expanded this work with a similar project on the island of Stord, where we added a strategic route analysis for autonomous buses. The project was partly funded through the Research Council of Norway’s Pilot-T programme, for which I authored the successful grant application.
The framework developed through this R&D initiative later became a knowledge base for the Airport City project. The mobility project on Stord was directly linked to — and designed as an extension of — the approved city centre plan, which I had completed the year before together with ABO Plan & Arkitektur.
Project owners: Stord Municipality and Infracity AS (now merged with NUDA)
Project lead: Håkon Iversen, Infracity / NUDA / ABO Plan & Arkitektur
Geopolitical & Infrastructural Insight
The King and I ending a two hours sit-down.
Cities do not operate in isolation; they are shaped by geopolitics, supply chains, critical minerals, energy transitions, and digital infrastructure. I read these currents and translate them into local choices on data, logistics, resilience, and investment. The competence lies in connecting global dynamics with ground-level design and governance so places can be proactive rather than reactive. This lens informs my work on digital imperialism, port strategy, and infrastructural risk—and feeds directly into Ideator™ scenarios and decision maps.
Geopolitics is global infrastructure in motion, and the ability to navigate dialogue across cultures is essential. In Re-Building the Kingdom of Tonga, meetings across the entire power hierarchy have been necessary to both initiate and maintain as a strategic requirement.
My meeting with the King of Tonga marked a personal and professional turning point for the project. Yet—even with a handshake from both the King and the Prime Minister—decision-making is shaped by forces that do not always sit at the same table. As I describe in IDEAS, the project now stands at a crossroads where Tonga’s political transition will determine its future. The election of a new Prime Minister will define the direction and destiny of the Kingdom moving forward.
Initiative by: Feleti Ita Group AS
Human–AI Co-Creation Methodology
Me writing the second article “We Stand in a New Gepolitical Landscape” as part three of the four step strategic silent launch of Ideator on Linkedin.
I treat AI as a mirror and amplifier for human intention, not a substitute for it. SgD and Ideator™ formalise this: the human initiates, AI reflects and extends, and the entire process remains traceable, ethical, and transparent. The method is designed to protect authorship and agency while expanding option-sets and accelerating synthesis. In practice, that means better questions, clearer structures, and accountable outcomes—across creative, editorial, and strategic work.
I am transparent about the editorial process behind the final stages of IDEAS. Over the last two months, through more than five million tokens and 5,300 pages of structured dialogue, I developed the foundations of SgD in collaboration with ChatGPT. In other words: I shaped ChatGPT into Ideator, which was later coded directly into what has now become Ideator COS.
Work with AI is undeniably here to stay — but at this scale, it only makes sense if the collaboration strengthens me in return: in ideas, reflection, structure and knowledge.
This is why SgD, CBPT and SEIDR form the methodological core of Ideator COS, and why they hold real value in today’s broader AI discourse.
Initiated through: Ideator AS
Visionary Generalism
The proposal for Electric City, Kristiansand 2050 was developed on the foundation of visionary generalism. In addition to the lecture, book and presentation, we created something truly unique: a physical model onto which we digitally projected the entire solution — an extraordinary experience for the audience.
My approach combines depth with breadth: architecture and urbanism, technology and policy, culture and leadership—disciplines that rarely sit at the same table. The value of this generalism is pattern recognition: seeing how seemingly unrelated domains lock together to produce change. It is also a stance—valuing craft, character, and long-term practice over quick wins. This competence threads through IDEAS and anchors Ideator™ as a tool for humane, system-aware decision-making.
Electric City – Kristiansand 2050 was an ambitious initiative designed to elevate Electric Region, a major regional strategy led by Å Energi. The annual conference in Kristiansand gathered more than 600 participants, and I initiated the vision as part of a broader collaboration.
Our delivery included the vision itself, a film, a book, my keynote presentation at the conference, and a physical model that attracted significant attention for its pedagogical clarity in presenting a highly complex theme and project.
Project owner: Å Energi
Project lead: COWI – Håkon Iversen