Future Rural Communities project in the north of Norway

 

Two rural villages in Northern Norway have been chosen for the Future Rural Communities project (Fremtidens bygder). They are Flakstad in Nordland and Mosjøen in Nordland.

This project is an initiative from NAL-Ecobox, in collaboration with Trefokus and Zero and has a focus on environment development in rural areas in Norway. Just seven rural communities have been chosen for this phase:   Norddal in Møre og Romsdal, Granvin in Hordaland, Iveland in Aust-Agder, Rakkestad in Østfold, Harestua in Oppland,  Flakstad in Nordland and Mosjøen in Nordland

About the project:
The project’s objective is to demonstrate practically how to design and build in an environmental friendly manner not only focusing on the big cities but also in rural communities. Area efficiency is an important part of a holistic vision on sustainability and it’s also applicable in rural areas. It is environmentally correct to project and build in a compact settlement instead of the disperse settlement pattern that exists now in rural areas. Much of the work done now in Norway is concentrated in main cities while rural communities are characterized by a disperse settlement pattern.

Michael Lommertz from Ecobox explains in this months Arkitektnytt 4, that there are many large houses in rural areas where big families lived before and now only very few people live. By moving people near to each other transportation will be reduced and public transportation is easier to plan. Less transport and more compact development reduces energy. Another key reason for a compact building pattern is, according to Lommertz, to protect land resources.  In rural areas there may be lack of space: Disperse development will often spread into agricultural land or natural areas. For those who believe density is a problem, Lommertz says that it can still contribute to an attractive environment because people and activities are gathered, and in concentrated settlement the architectural qualities can be raised more easily. In other words this project is about developing places where it is attractive to live.

I hope this project, besides helping environmental friendly building, will make these communities, characterized by depopulation, a more attractive place to live and do business. In this way the people will return to rural areas, the cities will get less crowded, and the quality of life will increase for everyone.

Fields of Exploration _ Limits of Exploitation

Course on mining operations on the landscape in Northern Norway.

                                                                                               photo: Syd-Varange mines, reiseliv.no

Architecture Students from AHO (Oslo architect school) led by Kjerstin Uhre and Knut Eirik Dahl, from the Tromsø office Dahl & Uhre architects, are mapping mining operations on the landscape in Northern Norway.
The students together with their teachers are trying to understand what is happening with the people, the landscape and the cities  in the Northern part of Norway when the mining companies arrive here. "Because of rising commodity prices abroad closed mines will reopen in the north and local activity will dramatically increase in the near future. The goal of the course, declared Dahl, is to get the students to understand how territories changes. A difficult task, that will teach the students to dare to challenge certain issues and by doing this they will be at the forefront of development" http://www.arkitektnytt.no/vil-vare-i-forkant-av-utviklingen

This is a very interesting and important course that will bring knowledge not only to the students involved but to our region.
I recommend all to follow the students’ blog to learn more about this problem that will eventually affect all of us.
http://fieldsofexploration.blogspot.com/

Exhibition in Cuba

 The beginning:

When I arrived to the Faculty of Architecture a few days after I arrived in Cuba, both the Dean and the teachers welcomed me with open arms and showed me where they thought the exhibition could be.

The place needed painting and some of the windows had to be sealed, but apart from that the room was great. So, that same day we started planning where to hang the material I had taken with me.

 (photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

Because Sami Rintala teaches and works closely with his students I wanted to include local architecture students in the exhibition somehow. One of the teachers suggested that the students could design a “Vara en Tierra” (this is a typical Cuban small hut to take shelter during hurricanes). The idea was not to build a traditional one, but one with a new interpretation, a new concept….

 

 Setting up the exhibition:  

Two days later, the room was ready and the students had designed a new “Vara en Tierra”, unfortunately they did not have the materials to build it, nor the time to find materials, but they tried anyway. Their concept was to show in a computer inside the hut what they had planed to build. 

 (photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

With the help of the teachers, students and my family we set up the exhibition in a couple of hours and we finished just when people started arriving.

 (photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

 The opening:

The Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Jorge Peña Díaz, and the Vice-dean Lic. Lourdes Rodrigues officially opened the exhibition. Then it was my turn to say some words about Rintalas work. Two well know young cuban actors (Gabriella Griffith and Carlos Alejandro Halley) held a performance where they at the end made a bridge with their arms for people to enter the exhibition.

 (photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

 Participation:

Over 50 persons participated in the exhibition among them representatives from the Foreing Affairs Department of the CUJAE, students, teachers and others.

(photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

 Impact:

I am happy with the impact that exhibition had on the faculty, the participants signed a book and gave compliments to all of us for the exhibition and stated their satisfaction and hopes for a new exhibition in the near future. I have also received some letters of exposure assessment from the university.

(photo: Michele R. Widerøe)

 Future plans:

Sami Rintala and I are planning to set up a workshop in Cuba where Rintala and his students from NTNU will conduct a two week stay, work and cooperation with the students of the Faculty of Architecture in Havanna.

You, architecture and the city

You, architecture and the city is a teaching program, by the NAL Academy, I was lucky to be a part of this program last week at the Slettaelva school in Tromsø.

(photo: Michele Renée Widerøe)

The concept:

Students are divided into small groups and assigned a type of building or function in a city. They design and make models to scale. Simple models are inserted into a larger model that together form a city. The discussions about urban design can be integrated into other school subjects, such as: civics, history, geography, KRL. These discussions take place at many different stages in both the process and scale.

The objective is to:

1. Increase the level of knowledge of the city's functionality.

2. Be able to identify various architectural elements that are present in a city,

and their impact on the whole.

3. Read the overall picture of the functions (public / private, sports, culture, metro, cars, etc.) and how they are organized in relation to each other. How are functions organized in terms of efficiency, landscape and road network?

4. Be able to argue and justify the choices they make in the process.

5. Be able to create drawings to be used for the the construction of the buildings"

(text:Tor Inge Hjemdal, NAL academy leader)

(photo: Nordlys newspaper)

Although at the end of two days of cardboard cutting, model building and urban discussions, only one of the students wanted to be an architect, it is my impression that all of them had fun and went home with a little more understanding of city planning and architecture processes.

My first exhibition!

Name: Sami Rintala. Selected projects

Place: School of Architecture of Havana, CUJAE, Cuba

Date: Mars 31-2012

Time: 13:30

I have noticed an increasing interest in Norwegian design & architecture in Havana through the increasing attendance to the conferences I have given on the subject over the last three years.

On 2009 I gave a lecture on 70° arkitektur architects at Ludwig Foundation in Havana

The following year I gave a conference on Peter Opsvik chair design at the Design Institute of Havana and finally last year I gave a lecture on Contemporary Norwegian design & architecture at the Center for Architecture, Design & Urbanism of Havana. (Sponsored by Norsk Form – travels costs)

This interest is also manifest in the great public attendance to the exhibition on Norwegian architecture (SPOR) being presented in Havana these days.

This leads me to believe that it would also be interesting to show works of individuals architects of Norway.

This year I would like to take to Havana an exhibition featuring the work of architect Sami Rintala. Rintala is a Finnish artist and architect who settled in Norway in 1998.

"Important part of Rintala’s work is teaching and lecturing in various art and architecture universities. Teaching takes place usually in the form of workshops where the students often are challenged to participate in the shaping of human environment on a realistic 1:1 situation. Sami Rintala’s work is based on narrative and conceptualism. Resulting work is a layered interpretation of the physical, mental and poetic resources of the site." (www.rintalaeggertsson.com)

The plan so far is to bring a multimedia presentation and 8 banners featuring some of his projects.

Sami Rintala and I are also looking at the possibility of having a workshop with his students in Norway (NTNU) and architecture students in Cuba. Maybe they can even build something together...

Territorial Practice workshop in Tromsø

(photo: http://70n.blogspot.com/)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a very good workshop at The Arctic

Frontier Conference. It was held at the University of Tromsø. The workshop

was called Territorial Practices and was organized by Janike Kampevold Larsen from AHO (Oslo´s School of Architecture and Design) and Gisle Løkken from 70°N Arkitektur (the architecture office where I work).

The conference focused on a ”critical perspective on practices shaping the landscapes of the high and arctic North” and aimed to ”demonstrate the significance of architectural logics, explorations and concepts for social development” of the arctic North. There were around 15 speakers from different fields who talked about: Colliding Landscapes, Landscape Practice, Infrastructural Landscapes and Reinventing Mapping Practices.

I was also very happy to hear that Oslo´s School of Architecture and Design is in the progress of establishing a Landscape Architecture Academy in Tromsø. The academy will offer a full studies program including Masters and PHD degrees with teachers of high international level who teach and work on research in the North and the Arctic.

I found this workshop very interesting and illuminating for me. It helped me understand the dire need of an architecture and design center in our region that would make interesting information like the one given at the workshop accessible to all, and not only to the group of people who were able to attend.

The research results and studies presented at the seminar I am sure are of interest not only to many of our specialist, but also to all of us living here in the north. The architecture and design center could not only circulate this kind of information but also simplify the technical language used so as to be easily understood by the general public.

SPOR exhibition in Havana (my hometown) this weekend.

(photo: Armando de Armas)

The touring exhibition Contemporary Norwegian Architecture No. 7 (SPOR), which displays some of the most recent art in the Nordic nation constructive, opened to the public today at the Museum of Havana Convento de San Francisco de Asis.

Conceived by the National Museum of Arts, Architecture and Design in Norway, the exhibition, open until Jan. 15 and includes 37 projects. Most of them in Norway, but also in Scandinavia and other parts of the world.

Contemporary Norwegian Architecture # 7 arrived in Havana after its introduction last November at the Biennale of Architecture in Sao Paulo and will continue its journey in Cracow, Poland, arriving in Tromsø on the 16^th of june. I can hardly wait.