NORWAY LOGGING MUSEUM
Type: COMPETITION
Status: Unbuilt
Location: Fetsund, Norway
The predominant feeling in this landscape is one of a ‘hunkered’, low-lying nature with it’s meandering riverscape forming the adjacent archipelago. The challenge was to find a design solution that would reflect this nature, while creating it’s own context.
Forming a campus of varied uses, the proposal seeks to rationalise the vast programme through a rigid yet flexible system. The building’s structure organises it’s plan by implementing a 5m x 5m grid and structural post and beam system, replacing the more organic wooded surrounds with ‘an orchard’ of rigorous structural elements. Simultaneously a school, museum and small factory, the rigidity of this structural system allows multiple variants in configuration when considered against the required use of each element.
The plan is further organised into a series of ‘barn-like’ structures, evocative of the industrial nature of the processes celebrated in the museum, school and workshops. An overt expression of the timber structure at higher levels, sits somewhat ‘delicately’ on a series of galvanised steel legs connecting to the ground via concrete raft/plinth. Conscious of the sites positioning to the floodplain the timber structures are raised above ground floor level in a ‘floating’ manner. In varying circumstances the external cladding and internal functions are recessed-from and pulled-forward-of this structural system. The complex structural components sitting overhead, conceived with great care, enhance the sense of a space within which woodworking and details are of great importance.
A number of elements within the programme deviate from the orthogonal 5x5m grid to form the aquarium, lecture theatres and some exhibition spaces. These elements are formed in a more robust concrete expression as by necessity they interact with the ground-plane. An exterior timber structural expression softens their forms and allows an interaction with the wider complex.
A T-shaped axis is established on the site, parallel and perpendicular to the flow of the Glomma river. This axis forms the main circulation route at ground and first floor levels linking all programmes within the complex. At the intersection of these two axes the vertical circulation routes are formed with a tower emerging at the centre of the plan housing administrative, faculty and associated facilities. The tower is a way-finding device within the area and a marker of a significant geographical position. At it’s highest point a public viewing deck will allow interaction with the entire landscape to significant distances, crossing national borders.
The workshops, lecture-halls and display spaces are pulled forward of this corridor in varying circumstances, allowing direct access and interaction of all spaces to the riverscape. These ‘inlet’ spaces will be depressed in parts to allow retention of flood-water as reflection ponds adjacent to the working spaces and exhibition halls alike. These ‘courtyards’ further provide diagonal transparencies between the different activities of the complex, connecting workers with students and staff with visitors throughout. An introverted social organism, sub-divided in quarters for operational purposes, is expressed as a singular element in the local urban landscape.
It was important that the campus should have a contemporary, forward-looking identity, yet retain an expression in keeping with local traditions ensuring it will remain ‘current’ throughout it’s lifecycle, long into the future.
Contractor: N/A
Photography: N/A