Between the blue and the green - Reconnecting Oslo
Photos: Pierre Excellent
Between the blue and the green - Reconnecting Oslo
A story of Oslo’s last 20 years through A-lab’s work
When presented with the opportunity to show A-lab’s work in Paris, we wanted to show how we work with processes. Much of our biggest projects has been in Oslo and been about reconnecting the city through green and blue elements. The exhibition coincided with a recent 20-year anniversary for the office, hence looking at Oslo’s urban developments for the last 20 years through A-lab’s projects. A plethora of the office’s oeuvre were displayed - residential projects and big urban plans.
TYPE OF PROJECT: Exhibition
LOCATION: Paris, France
CLIENT: La galerie d'architecture
COLLABORATORS: Mustad Eiendom, Steen & Strøm, Storebrand, HAV Eiendom
SIZE: 180 m²
TIMEFRAME: 30th January – 25th February 2023
STATUS FOR PROJECT: Complete
Concept
The exhibition presents a total of 11 selected Oslo projects, all of which have in common that they play alongside, and strengthen, the connection to the capital's surrounding nature, the countryside and the Oslo Fjord. Behind each of these projects are advanced interdisciplinary collaboration processes.
By using La Galerie d'Architecture long and narrow entrance to create a timeline that shoots out of the wall, the audience is placed in a parallel world, where A-lab's 20-year history mirrors the development of Oslo in recent times. As you move further into the main room, the studio's working methodology reveals itself in all its breadth.
The drawing table
Each project is presented with a worktable covered with drawings, sketches, models, clippings and documents, creating an all-Norwegian experience where even the tabletops are painted with Jotun LADY Oslo Blue, and the lamps are Norwegian Luxo Lights. This particular project was accompanied with an installation of Oslo Science City. The idea was to extract the main idea of the proposal for Norway’s first innovation district, which is creating meeting points for synergies to emerge.
Big developments - big shows
Lilleakerbyen and Økern were given the largest spaces due to their size. For Lilleakerbyen we displayed a giant model made by A-lab's model builder Unni Alstad. The model shows the envisioned urban floor and Mustad’s ambitions for Lilleaker. The idea of starting with the urban floor before thinking about the buildings was groundbreaking back then and something A-Lab is known for.
Abstraction of Økern’s future
For Økern, we went for an artistic interpretation. A-lab's designers have abstracted how a multifaceted giant regulatory process looks like this area. In the middle of the installation, there is a mini version of the artist Lars Ramberg's art installation "Tillit” (Trust in English). His installation consist of illuminating the windows of the old mall so that it spells out trust. It is in many ways a continuation of his earlier work in Berlin Zweifel. A-lab’s installation is an abstraction of the imploding diagram.
The idea behind the selection of residential projects was to show that A-lab have many architectural expressions and can work in any scale when it comes to residential housing projects. From the left: Frysja, Sæter Terrasse and Kjelsås.
All the typologies
Ground level as an instrument for vibrant cities
A-lab identified the importance of a wellfunctioning streetscape when materializing the city’s visions. The exhibition showed the evolution from A-lab’s first project, Barcode, Oslo’s first business district of high-rises, and the first part of the Fjord City, through Lilleakerbyen. The ideas and insights from research and testing in Lilleakerbyen where they introduced life in the river as a premise provider for the plan are taken further in the final piece of the transformation of Oslo’s harbor: the future development of Grønlikaia. A-lab insists that the new dimension of architecture should not separate nature and humans, but rather treat them as co-dependent entities in an eco-system. This implies that landscape and fauna, not only above water, but even life in the sea, should be included. The Grønlikaia project demonstrates how the city’s visions and ambition level have been refined.
The Norwegian Collaboration Model
The Norwegian urban development model has sparked international interest. In Norway, the developers initiate the process and respond to the municipalities’ governing spatial plans through concrete development proposals. Thus, a larger part of the responsibility lies on the developers and on the architects who advice and design for them.
A-lab faces this responsibility by challenging and investigating the plans, visions and intensions behind them in order to find a common ground with the client and the municipalities, facilitating a close cooperation. Often, this process is triggered by reformulating the questions, asking «can we do more?», «what are the potential innovations to be made?», and most importantly, «what’s in it for the user?».
The consequences and innovations of A-lab’s experimental and inclusive approach can be seen in different scales of their projects – from urban plans to façade elements.
