Text description provided by the architects. Bergen University College brings together the engineer, teacher and health educations in one new building complex. The college is built on a former railway depot site, where new buildings blend in, regards being taken to the layout of the rails, with the original structures.
The school is designed as a serpentine shape winding its way through the old structures, thus creating intimate courtyards and nice outdoor spaces for the Kronstad quarter.
The project is named Linking (Kobling). Referring to the building linking the area of Kronstad to the center of Bergen ,- infra structurally with the recently established tram. – The project links the new and the old built environment and it links the inhabiting institutions, which were separated before.
The University College of Bergen will be visible in the cityscape with a new front square, where existing railway buildings converted into student facilities and cantina emerges in constellation with the new building complex. New meets old. The administration wing of the college rises as a campanile towards the square and the main entrance from Inndalsveien.
The old railway deposit buildings contains social functions uniting the ca. 5000 students in the new “campus town”. –Student house, cantina, library and gymnasium is thus placed in the 4 restored brick buildings.
The auditoriums – with open views and access to light giving courtyards- surrounds the common student functions. Classrooms with different sizes, open study zones and meeting spaces for common use are located on the two lower levels in the new house.
The three different branches of education, are gathered with their own identity on the levels 2-4, -on top of the base of classrooms on the lower levels. This way there is a rich opportunity to link the different educations in synergy and mutual inspiration, and still leaving the possibility for reflection within your own area of study.
