Project:
This Must Be The Place

Rather than focusing too much on the “local” or “specific”, the project seeks to address what has been identified as “typical challenges” for a place like Raufoss, related to its historic modes of production:

How to make the city center gain from relatively large investments in civic programs?
How to rethink the city center as commerce is consolidating in larger cities? How to make industrial activities and production part of the daily life in the city?

Connecting the civic center with the industrial park and the project site requires an open space plan that can accommodate a variety of buildings of different sizes and programs. A plan that strengthens the relationship between present and future public buildings by reinforcing the relationship between buildings, parks and the open spaces in between.

The proposal consists of 3 phases of development forming a new way of moving through the center of Raufoss as a sequence of open spaces between buildings and the river park. As the industrial park will open up to the city in the future, the idea is that this open structure allows for a blurred boundary between the new and the old. To allow for flexible spaces for production, public activities and shared ameni- ties, as well as housing, we have proposed buildings with expansive podiums work- ing with the topography of the site to create a more continuous urban landscape. The podiums contain public functions, allowing for a rich streetscape flanked by civic /industrial/ productive programs on the ground floor. They also contain com- mon programs for the housing projects – the idea is that the podiums serve the housing project as well as the city as a whole, and in that way incentivize shared use among its citizens.

The proposal This must be the place celebrates a modernist past of rationality and scale that connects well to the industrial heritage of the place. The aesthetics of the built elements seduces with clever and modest architecture while not con- vincing in its totality. The phasing of the proposal is uncomplicated and provides a reasonable strategy for the municipality. However, the proposal also neglects large parts of the site, leaving them behind without an envisioned future. Perhaps the proposal puts forth a typology that is too industrial and not enough forward looking in terms of the municipality’s wish to reinvent itself.

The location of a hotel on the border between the industrial area and the new city center is clever. Housing at the riverscape adds great value and does to some extent invite nature into the urban areas. However, a large podium construction very close to the riverscape offers difficulties in terms of spatial experience of safety and comfort while also conveying a lack of understanding in terms of climate adaptation of the built environment. Overall the large scale of public space poses a challenge and seems to be unengaged as concerns contemporary demands on the city–human relation. Hence, the jury appraises the exquisite aesthetic qualities of the architecture while questioning the proposal on an urban scale and as an urban strategy for the transformation of Raufoss.

Andreas Kalstveit (NO), architect
Jørgen Johan Tandberg (NO), architect
Louis Gervais (CH), contributor - architect

Europan15 publication