Article source: oslo school of architecture and design
It is said that Oslo is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, and that building land within its natural boundaries is full. To accommodate future growth Oslo will have to look beyond, to municipalities within commuting distance. One such municipality is Nes i Akershus, one of the principal agricultural producers of grain in the country. Nes does not want to become a suburb of Oslo, so it is looking for alternative modes of accommodating additional population without losing its rural character.
Fredrikstad Waldorf School’s newest addition, which will accommodate children from grades 2 – 4 and create a new premises for the school day care facility, was recently opened by Jon-Ivar Nygård, Mayor of Fredrikstad. Located on a picturesque south facing slope and surrounded by trees the new building, clad in Kebony, is situated on the boundary between the forest and schoolyard. To preserve the natural backdrop to the play area, the building is partly placed on stilts floating above the creek to maintain the natural rock formations on the site and the flow of the little stream through the grounds.
Paradoxically the new main cabin at Årsund was built after the annex. This due to the fact that the original cabin, with exception of the annex, was removed to make way for the new-build. Moreover, the annex was drawn by another architect office and completed a few years ago. We therefore had to design a new whole, which included the annex and yet at the same time created a new building which in itself would provide a satisfactory solution both for site and program.
Inspired by the original 19th Century design, a rundown farmhouse on the east side of the River Glomma – Norway’s longest and largest river – has been brought into the 21st Century by LINK Architects.
Article source: GRAFT Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
GRAFT’s proposal for the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo finds its place in a unique historic and spatial context; integrated into an outdoor museum complex in the center of the Bygdøy peninsula. The long and vivid history of the Viking Museum and its presented findings unfold in a continuous motion within and around the new landscape that houses the extension. The draft aims to protect the residents’ and visitors’ view of the area in the north while sensitively augmenting the landscape features on the given site.
The architect was approached by the client with the request of converting the existing loft from uninsulated storage to living spaces. Due to the low ceiling height at about 2.1 at the maximum, the client suggested the roof be completely rebuilt in a position about one meter higher. This original plan would have doubled the building budget and most probably have been rejected by building authorities due to height restrictions. Instead the architect suggested keeping the roof in the same position, and instead work with the space so that it would be usable and feel spacious, even with the limited ceiling height.
The client asked the architect for a one-room extension, which is what the zoning laws would permit. Since The house had only a small garden in front, facing morning sun, so the architect proposed to put the extension largely below ground, and allow for a big rooftop terrace facing evening sun and sunset. This would also allow for a more secluded location of the extended room, which was a wish by the client.
The interior spaces are sculpted to form a varied sequence of spaces, with emphasis on the changes between light and dark spaces as well as between open and intimate spaces. In a small house it is also important to pay attention to all the small “bonus” spaces, such as window sills for sitting in. The interior is all wood, ranging from dark pine floors to light beech walls.
The project area is situated in a unique area of Bergen in Norway. Located just outside the historic city centre on the south side of Store Lungegårdsvannet near the Møllendal River, the site has a long history as an industrial area, including milling back to the Middle Ages, and storage for the city’s technical department in recent times. Much of the Møllendal area has for decades been inaccessible and unsuited for public use so making a fracture between two parts of the town. The project aims to reconnect and to give continuity to a new territory exploring transitions between land and water; the goal is to create the conditions for regenerating the area into an attractive and active waterfront neighborhood.
The design of the new Viewpoint on the Pulpit Rock in Norway, is an attempt to combine art with architecture. Based on the famous painting “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali, „fly” wanted to take the surrealistic melting clocks as a template for the design of the new observation deck. A part of the rock is carved out to give the impression of a giant eye. In this cavity, a grandstand is provided with stairs and around it an aluminum/glass structure is stretched. This glass roof with the underlying grandstand, invites visitors to linger both in sunny and rainy weather.