Højblokka_PULS / MAPT + DARK
Architect: MAPT + DARK Architects
Location: Oslo, Norway
Program: Highrise with Shopping, Wellness and Office Facilities
Project year: 2009
Images: MAPT
With this project we looked for a reinterpretation of the urban block typology in combination with vertical multiplication and urban density. The site is situated next to Oslo Central Station and had been formerly occupied by the postal headquarters. Due to its proximity to a variety of infrastructural layers in a dense urban and commercial area, the proposal was woven into the circulation of the area. It became an infrastructural hub with connections to all layers of circulation. By completely removing the existing block these connections could be reconfigured to fit the present needs. Moreover, it was possible to make full use of the site by taking its outline as the footprint for the new urban block. The new structure comprised 90.000sqm of office spaces, hotels, leisure and shopping facilities. It consisted of the low rise urban block and three towers that reach up to 130m height. The low rise urban block became the circulation catalyst by attaching it to all means of public transportation and the pedestrian flows in strategic spots. Large atriums provided enough daylight for the enclosed public space. The visitors can move freely in this landscape and could become flaneurs in the undulating surface of exposed platforms and introverted pockets. Højblokka is public space within the public.
Højblokka / Puls was a proposal in an invited competition next to five other teams and was carried out in corporation with DARK architects from Oslo.
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It looks like an office tower.
i hope one day someone realizes that buildings like this one will never be sustainable in a country like norway….even with triple-glazing, the heatloss is huge… but well….time will tell…i guess this people are really taking in consideration Climate change, so in some 20 years oslo may have a tropical climate.
Why do these buildings always glow in the dark? This one even glows at daylight. I hope architects will eventually understand that radioactive buildings will never be sustainable.
I imagine the practise of leaving the lights on until the floor has been cleaned might fall out of favour soon, as the recent Earth Hour has hopefully started a trend. I think some of the G20 protesters were specifically smashing windows of corporations that persistently offend by leaving their offices ‘glowing’ all night long. This is not the 70s, peak oil is behind us, and its about time architects were a bit more intelligent with their renderings. Unless this 40,908 square metres of 24 hour call centres?
This project, like EVERY project from the office DARK, has 100% performance in terms of it’s users needs, and “obvious” needs in the city like pedestrian flows. This again is then linked into a “performing” commercial layer. Theese projects are the ultimate type of architecture, if you belive that market logic can formulate what the city should be for it’s inhabitants. Nowhere in this process has Oslo been included in the re-working of this very very unattractive area.
Overall, the proposal by http://www.mad.no for this area is much more in-line with what at least I concive as the public opinion on this project :
- redesign/generate the adjecant streets
- signifying the central station as the major “downtown” in oslo WITHOUT filling the entire footprint of the site
- create a new bus terminal to open up new possibilities on the exsisting plot for the bus terminal.
DARK/MAPT only maximizes the potential for the client, while MAD much more creates potentials for the city of Oslo, and is sensitive to the context.
I agree that it’s bad for companies to leave their lights on for no reason, but I think this thread is getting pretty hot and bothered over a bunch of architectural renderings that have a specific rhetorical purpose and should not be literally construed. I suspect the architects’ intention was to highlight their project with respect to the surrounding context– and as someone mentioned above, the glowing building is a well-known convention of architectural renderings. I’m not saying this group doesn’t have a point, but that the building’s environmental performance should be judged by more pertinent criteria. This sounds like grandstanding to me, and it doesn’t help the cause.
brilliant
5:35 PM Aug 20th
Højblokka_PULS / MAPT + DARK | ArchDaily http://t.co/8o61jRu vía @archdaily
11:04 AM Jan 4th
Højblokka_PULS / MAPT + DARK | ArchDaily http://t.co/cI24SVwP via @archdaily