Herreros Architects
Client: AS Eindom HAV.
Illustrations: Mir / HerrerosArquitectos
Engagement Date: 2009
End Date: 06/12/2010
Munch Areaes an urban project that occupies the peninsula flanked by the river Bjorvika Akerselva, one of the seven commons paving the Harbour Promenade ambitious program to open the Oslo fjord once released its coastal blockade which for centuries was the port and shipyards.
Munch Museum The future is the protagonist of the set but we should not forget that we are operating with a full piece of city, housing, offices, services, business and, above all, a remarkable amount of public space given to citizens.
We like to describe it as an intervention context uncompromisingly: oriented differently to the four cardinal points north to the city, the fjord south, east to the Ekeberg hill and Bispekaia neighborhood, and west to the Opera and historical center is described as a succession of places that offer different personalities, different programs, different trees, different environments, to which we have named intentionally: Library Square, bustling urban-Bispekaia Plaza-with-neighborhood market, Canal Walk, with its restaurants and riverside platforms, "Munch Plaza-anteroom of the hall, Museum Island, with its artistic intervention program," Beach Area "which continues the covers of opera in an artificial beach, and Leisure Island -for silence and contemplation.
This intentional and volume of the Museum and other buildings, this small district negotiates the different scales of important parts urban disconnected today, the river, the hill, the Bar Code of MVRDV project, opera Snohetta, the future library Daichman, new neighborhoods under construction, the fjord, etc .- permeability looking east-west and offers a diverse collection of hybrid types and programs that cover the entire spectrum of ages that focuses on a contemporary city, productive, living and visiting equal parts.
The urban program is distributed in blocks along the coast of hybrid program rising in height as they move away from her and slide over each other to seek the views and sun. Podiums are based on reproducing the original apple acquired at the level of the street a very urban setting in contrast to air permeability and character of the upper floors.
The Museum is located outside the area of influence of opera and there choose a vertical format to complete by contrast, the silhouette of public space have become their covers establishing an open and visible to the geography of the city and its topographical events and to create unlandmark be alongside opera identifying the city in the future.
The vertical Munch is also the idea of making the visit to the museum is both a dialogue with the city, a process of discovery, tuning and learning of history (past, present and future) from Oslo by dynamic exercise perception that is raising the horizon as you climb.
Memory research:
Develop a job as the Master Plan for Oslo Bjorvika in turn requires the conviction that any proposed architecture and urban design is in itself a research exercise. In fact, a significant part of our work was to make inroads into the world of applied knowledge and typological inventions to provide testable proposals not only from the point of view of architectural quality but also from the context variables objectively Nordic seen as a priority. This includes all standard quality of urban life, from sunlight to sustainability through accessibility to public transport and the equipment or the use of materials with recognizable virtues not to mention the claim of a diverse housing supply that affects housing but also the type of office and retail. All are elements of a conversation that develops multiple bands simultaneously with and in which the obligation to behave as an expert requires a studio responsible for each parameter.
Such a script can only be addressed from the design of protocols for design as an inherent part of the project. In our case, we have tried to enable a holistic view of the structural, urban facilities, environmental criteria and the actual construction of the development.
The intention is that all chapters operate collaboratively to search for an event responsible and intentionally made progress on certain concerns such as simplicity, sustainability, recyclability and maintenance. The consequence of these works are diverse: for example we can speak of energy self-sufficiency this piece of city powered by geothermal energy from the fjord and the implementation for the entire building of urban supply of cold water in summer and warm in winter as TABS principles (Thermal Active Building System), or refer to the networks of pneumatic waste collection, research on the use of recycled materials in the urbanization of the area and so on.
Therefore, speak of research is invoked for this work containing "scientific" while "useful to others." And is that research does not limit its application enabled this project but may well involve other recyclable material and that not only relates to technical or typological but to own working methods and the establishment of testing protocols , interpretation, redescription and communication of ideas. It is in this area where we consider that our work in Oslo can be useful for the community of architects, scientists who seek similar paths in the international context.
