Europan Norway

The project illustrates a platform and a sketch for some tools with which to develop the place: While the project discusses the urban context, it holds some strategies and ideas for both the public square and the building. The public square is built up with terrain as a small hill. This is possible to develop by simplifying and redesigning. The sections show intent to connect the ground level with the underground parking. The building is satisfactory as a scheme, because it limits the square and connects the square to the areas behind it. The project has a plan for the main square, although in some respects it is overdone and formal. However it is commendable in its approach to building around the plaza where everything is turned into the center and yet still makes connections to the areas behind it. The project has potentials and ideas, and perhaps too many solutions. It must be further developed with less solutions and a far simpler gesture in coordination with the municipality.

This project seems both old fashioned and conventional in design, yet it has an idea for the future identity of the city. However, it is underdeveloped, the strategy is not solving any real problems for the city, and the idea is on the info-sign-level. Step by step contextualized urban strategies are lacking. But this project has potential, as this strong idea of a city-space as an urban testing room for new technologies could be stressed. Lillestrøm is definitely the right place for such a concept.   

At first glance “The Five Conditions” has a freshness, a kind of original approach in its

methodology that could eventually produce an intelligent design. But beside this idea the final result is somehow arbitrary in relation to the five conditions presented. “The five conditions” contains some interesting ideas for programming, but does not show the connection to the actual site. There is almost a contrast between the analysis and the chosen design. The design spreads the program and buildings around the entire public space. The public square is filled with ramps and structures that are expensive to build and unrealistic to implement on the site. It has, however, playful illustrations and a social foundation for the method, as well as good argumentation.