Illustration: A-lab. Image shows a future transformed Økern at one of the squares. It has vegetation and people on the streets. Illustration: A-lab. Image shows a future transformed Økern at one of the squares. It has vegetation and people on the streets.
Everyday life
Urban planning deals with complicated systems and big physical structures, yet it is also very intimate as it addresses people’s everyday lives. This includes how we live, how we move and our need to interact with each other and with nature. As urban planners and designers, we consider these everyday needs in relation to political strategies in cooperation with private and public participants. In our work, we want to promote public health by making public spaces more accessible and facilitating for a wide spectrum of activities. We strive to make people’s lives easier and better by programming a sensible mix of functions so that one does not need to travel far to meet one’s daily needs.
Thinking beyond the project’s physical footprint
One of our approaches to urban planning is thinking beyond the physical limits of the project. This means treating the project not as an isolated place, but understanding it in relation to its’ surroundings. Among the first questions we ask is what is this plot’s context? What role is this place currently playing and what role might it play in the future? By analyzing the wider picture, we strengthen existing connections as well as establishing new connections that would otherwise be overlooked. One kind of connection which we have improved in all our designs since our first projects over twenty years ago, is the one between people and places and green and blue spaces.
Illustration: A-lab. From the project Den Gamle Veterinær Høyskolen på Adamstuen. What used to be a university campus is being transformed into a new central area in Oslo.
Photo: Jean-Pierre Mesinele. Pictured is Søndre gate in Oslo and our landscape project where the goal was to make a neighbourhood street greener and more sociable.
Designing in an ecological crisis
A central principle in our strategy to mitigating the negative environmental impact of our designs is flexible architecture. We make volumes that are easy to reprogram for other uses in the future. We apply the principle of flexibility in our designs of outdoor spaces too, allowing them to be used for several purposes. Not only do they support social life, they also facilitate for flood drainage and biological diversity.