Last year we posted about studiometrico‘s involvement in the Operation Fornebu with bkark, 6a and jcla. Long time has passed by and unfortunately we haven’t got that competition. Nevertheless we had great time, intense design sessions with fantastic people and – we believe – a very strong proposal.
Find out more after the break.

Satellite view

The Site

Placed in the middle of the Fornebu peninsula, the project area measured 70.000 sqm and used to host several airport facilities. Some huge hangars and storage buildings had been placed on a large concrete slab ‘strong enough to carry the weight of an aircraft’. The huge ‘table’ was also an efficient solution to provide a generous horizontal surface and a large underground area on a rocky and discontinuous terrain. As the City airport moved to a new location in Gardermoen the area experienced a quick adaptive reuse: most of the hangars became storage buildings serving the Oslo ships, another one was turned into a quite surreal indoor golf court, then the developers understood the site had more potential… The 6 invited teams were asked to design a masterplan for the area organizing 575 new dwellings and a large surrounding green environment. Architects were allowed to clear the site from existing buildings, while the concrete platform with its solid bearing structure and generous underground space, had to be preserved as an available tabula rasa to support new constructions.

Oslo Fjord seen from Fornebu

Eastern access under the platform

The Mothership

The Hangar on the Western corner

Eastern access under the platform

Cocrete column

Approaching the site from South West

Existing airport facilities

Existing airport facilities

Existing airport facilities

Containers above the platform

Team members on the cherry picker

The masterplan

The orography of the Oslo Fjord on a large territorial scale has been the main inspiration to conceive and develop our landscape strategy. The uniform orientation of hills, rocks and small islands appears as the generative factor of the main direction of the project area. The lines observed on the territory becomes ‘landscape strips’, large portion of landscaped terrain available for different program and diverse vegetation. One strip features orchards, another hosts allotments for residents, a strip presents playgrounds for kids while another has denser patches of trees. A strip in the middle of the site is left empty, exposes the existing asphalt and stands at a lower level, it resembles a runway and works as main public space to connect different parts of the site.

Orography orientation and landscape strategy

Masterplan (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Sunny orchards and shadow gardens

Landscaping the concrete platform

Landscape (click to open)

The (oversized) Villas

To respond to the fairly high density requested by the client, to comply with the regulations that set a maximum height of 5 storeys and to preserve a good balance between buildings and landscape, we propose an unconventional type of construction that is neither a villa nor a condominium. Fornebu is close enough to Oslo to be a desirable place to live for Oslo citizens and has direct access to the beautiful outskirts of  Oslo Fjord. For these reasons is an attractive neighbourhood for young families, but the high number of dwellings requested doesn’t really allow to satisfy the dreamed lifestyle of many couples with kids: to have an independent villa with a private garden. Our oversized villas are 4 or 5 storeys buildings with 4 corner apartments on each floor. There aren’t private gardens but each house stands in the middle of a public intimate green environment.

Landscape

Indoor living

Outdoor living

Bedroom

3d model

Planometric view (click to open)

Perspective view

Perspective view

The Apartments

Each house has a central core with staircase and elevator and a wide corridor that provides access to the different apartments. The living room is the most generous space and benefits from the best exposure to the sun and the best view toward the landscape. Each apartment features 2 or 3 bedrooms and a continuous 2.5m wide balcony, an extension of the living room that can be particularly enjoyable during the never ending Scandinavian summer evening. The deep covered balcony also allows natural light into the apartment in the winter when the sun rays stretch horizontally and natural light is desirable. To respond to the problem of the cold bridges that suspended balconies imply, the building is split in two: the ‘scaffold like’ outer structure of the balconies is propped against the solid and fully insulated inner volume of the building bu remains separated and independent. While the balcony structure is a discontinuous solid wood construction, the interior slabs of the floors are made of in situ cast concrete.

Balcony structure and insulated core

Square – 3 beds (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Square – 2 beds (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Octagon – 2 beds (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Circle – 2 beds (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

Indoor living room

Outdoor living room

Unité d’aviation

In our design proposal the industrial character of the site is perceived as a positive value and a significant aspect and some of the traces of the past are therefore kept and enhanced. One of the hangar, a massive concrete structure organized on different storeys with a rectangular plan shows the potential to be refurbished and transformed into a very special housing block: the ‘Mothership’. Norwegian vernacular architecture is used as reference to conceive and develop a variety of new wooden house types that can be inserted into the concrete skeleton and organized on different levels as an articulated fragment of the urban fabric of a Norwegian historical city. The space of the existing hangar is not completely occupied by the new inserted units, an interior public space, private patios and light wells are left open. The renovated building is an opportunity to suggest different (and more urban) lifestyles within the new housing development, bypasses the uncomfortable ’5 storeys rule’ and claims the right to be kept and preserved as an unique piece of industrial archaeology.

Conceptual drawing

The Mothership ‘as found’

Structure

Maquette

Maquette

Maquette

Mothership unit (click to open, then right-click to zoom)

N-S section (click to open)

E-W section (click to open)

Perspective view (click to open)

studiometrico team:

Lorenzo Bini
Alberto Clerici
Simone De Iacobis
Gloria Ferrari

previous posts about this project:

Operation Fornebu

Norwegian friends Brendeland & Kristoffersen arkitekter have invited  6a architects, JCLA and studiometrico to team up and join a challenging urban design competition in Oslo, Norway.

A 70.000 sqm area – part of the dismissed Fornebu airport – will be transformed to host 575 new dwellings. IT Fornebu – a Norwegian developer – has first launched the competition and then short-listed 6 teams to compete and produce a design proposal by the end of January. Here the complete list of the competitors:

• April Arkitekter (NO), Helinco Architects (FI), Marjamaa Landskap (NO)
• Brendeland & Kristoffersen Arkitekter AS (NO), 6a architects Ltd (UK), studiometrico (IT), Jonathan Cook Landscape Architects (UK)
• Code Arkitektur AS (NO), Aurora Landskap AS (NO)
• Arkitektkontoret GASA AS (NO), Askim/Lantto Arkitekter AS (NO), Grindaker AS Landskapsarkitekter (NO), Erichsen & Horgen AS (NO)
• MVRDV (NL), Tupelo Arkitektur AS (NO), Bjørbekk & Lindheim Landskapsarkitekter (NO), Sweco
• Arkitektfirmaet C.F. Møller (DK)