Around 4.5 years ago, my partner and I started to discuss the possibilities and dream-scenarios of the available lot close to my parents. We have always had a dream to build something ourselves and add our personality to it. Not living in a place built on general needs, but in a house that will fit us and our lives.

We had just had a warm summer, the city was boiling and people were happy. However, both of us felt claustrophobic in our apartment in Oslo — we were irritated that we needed to take the car to reach the ocean to take a dip and fish, the dark burning feeling the small apartment had, and the limited freedom of not having our own place to chill, grow and take care of flowers in the garden. The constant feeling of being on display in the back garden and years of living in city apartments were starting to irritate us, despite loving city life.

A normal thought would perhaps have been to look at new apartments or houses in the area to upscale our living conditions. Paint it and do interior changes.

However… my PM head started to spin.

The thoughts had started to mature and discussions in our household had begun. That summer, visiting my parents, we started dreaming and modeling ideas around: "If we would build a house here… what would that be like?"

We were playing with the idea, the possibilities around it, the challenges with the land, the surroundings, features that would be nice to keep, enhance and so on.

At this point in time nothing was solid. We were playing with the idea of building our own place. We were living in another part of the country and the lot was at this time part of another property.

After that summer, things started to become clear.

  1. We needed a deeper understanding of ourselves as individuals and as a couple — our needs, wants and feelings.
  2. We needed to look into our future selves. Our vision, thoughts and hopes for the future. How could the house help us get there?

It became clear: building a house is like building a product.

And that is how we would attack it.

So first things first — we would need to take a step back and go deep.

Time to understand your users (ourselves) and their (our) problems.