MARITIME MUSEUM AND SCIENCE CENTRE BY COBE

In those days there was the grand opening of the Maritime Museum in Porsgrunn, 100 km south west of Oslo, which we have already presented the details of the project. The city of Porsgrunn has a long maritime history of shipping and the unique development of the region is clearly visible in the existing building structure.

The new museum tell the story of the town’s dock yard industry and its maritime history, which has employed thousands of people from the whole region. In addition, the attractive location of the museum right on the riverside Skienselva opens up an important process for the city concerning the future extensive urban renewal of the entire

“It was important to create a museum with a high level of sensitivity towards these surroundings, yet at the same time for the new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium to stand out as a spectacular contemporary building and become a landmark of Porsgrunn”, Lars Bendrup explains, Owner of TRANSFORM.

Lars Bendrup continues: “Our general vision was to turn a backside into a frontside. With the new museum the town will now orientate itself towards the beautiful river, which for much too long has been Porsgrunn’s industrial backside”.

The new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is composed of eleven smaller square volumes, together amounting to almost 2,000 m2. Each volume has a different roof slant that assembled make up a varied roof structure.

A characteristic aluminum facade, locally produced in Porsgrunn, not only holds the dynamic building structure together, but at the same time it reflects light and colors from the surrounding Norwegian mountain landscape.

Dan Stubbergaard, Founder and Creative Director of COBE, elaborates: ”This interpretation of the area’s pitched roofs and small wooden building entities sets the final frame for a unique and characteristic contemporary building”.

All public functions of the building are situated on the ground floor and have direct access to the outdoor areas including the new promenade towards the river. The central entrance area is the building's main room from where all other rooms are distributed.

This multifunctional space is defined by a central characteristic staircase that folds down from above and invites visitors upstairs to the large, enclosed exhibition area.

Here various room heights and a distinct ceiling line emphasize an airy and continuous space in the character of a white box. The exhibition space is composed as an open flexible space, gently subdivided by the roof and columns into 9 different spatial experiences.

Location: Porsgrunn, Norway

Architect: COBE

Collaborators: TRANSFORM, Sweco

Project Team: Dan Stubbergaard, Thomas Krarup, Eik Bjerregaard, Stine Lund Hansen, Tabea Treier, Charlotte Lieske, David Engell Jessen

Size: 2,000 m²

Year: 2013

Cost: 34 mio. DKK

Client: Telemark Museum

Photographers: Adam Mørk og Rasmus Hjortshøj

LEÜTHENHAVEN BY HENNING LARSEN ARCHITECTS

The New Leüthenhaven will be a new gathering point in the city, providing the setting for community and informal meetings.

The design of the new office facilities for Trondheim City in Leüthenhaven beautifully connects the building to the new cinema, front square and existing theatre as well as the many other educational and cultural institutions in the area.

The building is designed with a sheathing of Siberian Larch, a natural and completely non-toxic product. The trees sourced for the facade are grown in professionally managed forests, which maintain a careful balance between harvesting and replanting. The robust wood does not need any impregnation, making it an environmentally responsible material choice.

Besides its environmental advantages, Siberian Larch has a high aesthetic value, achieving a delicate silky grey patina as it is exposed to wind and rain; it is able to stand up to the rough and changeable Norwegian climate without the need for continued maintenance.

The facade of the new Leüthenhaven follows a long and characteristic tradition of building wooden houses in Trondheim—a city with the longest continuous line of wooded houses in the Nordic Countries. Since the early 1700s wood houses have dominated the Trondheim cityscape, and in 1841 it was decided that Trondheim should remain a ‘city of wood’.

The new Leüthenhaven is designed in alignment with this vision. The down-sized scale of the office building – as regards height and geometry – relates to the surrounding city. With its human scale, the building meets the city at eye level, and the displaced floors and projections contribute to opening up the building to its context.

Location: Trondheim, Norway 
Architect: Henning LarsenArchitects 
Gross floor area: 39,000 m2 
Year of construction: 2015 
Type of assignment: First prize in competition 
Client: Trondheim Kommune

URBAN MOUNTAIN BY SCHMIDT HAMMER LASSEN ARCHITECTS

URBAN MOUNTAIN is a proposal for a refurbishment and extension of a 50,000-square-metre high-rise office building in central Oslo.

The project introduces completely new and innovative ways of reducing energy consumption and the building’s CO2 footprint, employing Cradle to Cradle principles and targeting a BREEAM Outstanding certification.

When the refurbishment is complete the building will reach a total size of 79,000 square metres and will be a sustainable landmark for the city of Oslo. The building will be the tallest in Norway and the first high-rise building in Norway to enjoy natural ventilation.

Based on principles from Cradle to Cradle (C2C) thinking, as much as 90% of the demolished existing materials are being recycled into new and upgraded building materials; 80% directly used in the new refurbished building.

As an example, all the façade elements from the existing building are being re-used in the new façade design. Furthermore, the design concept operates with measurable C2C goals in areas of flexibility, biodiversity and recycling of water, heat and organic waste.

An important part of this project is to allow the sustainable measures to be visible to the users and the city, hereby raising awareness of how the building works. For instance the façade is characterized by a series of ‘green lungs’.

The ‘green lungs’ are an innovative part of the natural air intake in the building. With the use of regionally found plants, the ‘green lungs’ contribute to enhance biodiversity locally and to create a better and healthier indoor climate. The green plants clean, humidify and reduce the CO2-concentration of the incoming air for the comfort of the staff and visitors.

Solar chimneys run from the bottom to the top of the building. A greenhouse on the rooftop captures and reuses the excess heat of the building and the solar heat gain of the solar chimneys. The result is a recognizable building design – a sustainable landmark in the urban setting of the Oslo skyline.

Another example of visible sustainable solutions in the building is the innovative ice storage, which can be viewed through a large window by people going to and from the metro station. The more than 1000 cubic metres ice storage is used as a heat source in an adapted heat pump design and as a source of direct cooling during the summer.

To integrate the office building into the local community at street level, public access is given through an Urban Green Mall, selling healthy quality food and locally produced products. Here, people will meet and interact in the large atria, on terraces, in cafés and restaurants.

Location: Oslo, Norway

Architect: Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects

Design Team: Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, LOOP Architects, COWI Denmark, COWI Norway, Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH, Vugge til Vugge Denmark

Area Existing: 50,875 m2

Area Extension: 28,375 m2

Client: Entra Eiendom AS

Competition: 1st prize in open international competition

CLARION HOTEL & CONGRESS TRONDHEIM BY SPACE GROUP

The hotel at Brattøra redefines the classical atrium hotel typology to a new and strong identity. The rooms are arranged/organized in four highly rational structures all oriented towards the perfect view. The rotation transforms the atrium from an enclosed central space to a 3-dimensional star shaped  lobby space.

Unlike the classical American and Asian hotel atrium where everything is exposed in a centralized and vertical, magnificent but one-dimensional experience under a glass cover - the lobby is here given a 3-dimensional and dynamic spatial experience with a programmed roof, and a sequence of shifts between glimpse and panorama, intimacy and spectacular exposure.

The hotel bears references to the local city fabric of Trondheim in the combination between the large structural lines and the small intimate 'ally'.

The project is a new type of city block - transformed by two forces: the orientation of the private rooms in relation to views - and inside: the dynamic shape of the common/collective /shared/public space in between with glimpses and passages towards the harbor basin, the fjord and the park.

The hotel becomes a landmark without front or backside - but oriented towards the city and the fjord for optimal views in all directions. A lighthouse by the sea and inviting from the city.

The hotel room structure is 'dissolved' at ground level to increase the public accessibility at ground level. The openness secures good orientation from inside and out - and internally between reception, elevators, lobby bar restaurant, exhibition area and conference. 

Cross connections, shortcuts and moving of common functions into the adjacent squares are encouraged: outdoor dining at the south-west faced terraces by the Brattøra basin, pause areas in the park, exhibition and entertainment can turn towards an outdoor arena and representative 'red carpet' entrance with fountain and stone garden are facing the city.

SUPERSTAR LOBBY, the exceptional common space of the hotel connects all the public functions from ground level to the upper floors - spanning between the rational hotel room structures.

In the 3-dimensional lobby, the fireplace room, conference facilities and sky bar with roof terrace are shaped in a free form to take advantage of unique attractions towards the park, the Brattøra basin and the free view above neighbor buildings.

The internal crystalline shape ñ fragmented, but vertical sacral - gives associations to dramatic ice formations with cliffs, rips and ice floes.

 

 

Location: Trondheim, Norway

Architects: Space Group

Project Team: Gary Bates, Gro Bonesmo, Adam Kurdahl, Wenche Andreassen, Fredrik Krogeide, Naofumi Namba, Tim Prins, Minna Riska, Lotte Sponberg, Gerald Bliem, Grant Cooper and Nathan Smith

Project development team: Gary Bates, Gro Bonesmo, Adam Kurdahl, Anne Wodstrup, Fredrik Krogeide, Gesine Gummi, Claudia Laarman, Thomas Bang Jespersen, Jens Niehues

Engineering: Arup & Partners London

Fire: Reinertsen Engineering

Visualization: MIR AS, Luxigon

Landscape: Space Group, PLAN arkitekter AS

Model: Space Group

Structural engineer: Construction – Dr. Ing. A. Aas-Jakobsen Trondheim AS

Area: 35.000m2

Year: 2012

Client: Star Property C/O Realinvest

Photographs: Peter Hebeisen, Courtesy of Space Group, Ivan Brodey