Proscenium Trondheim / Point Supreme Architects + Gerousis + Hughes

Written by Karen Cilento
Published on April 25, 2011

Last year, we shared the results of Europan 10 with you - a biennial competition asking architects for innovative housing solutions for European sites. For 2011, the competition’s objective is to promote awareness about the environment and how we occupy the natural world. We’ve been covering the 2011 proposals, such as Europan Norway 2011, and today, we share an update on the progress of the Europan Norway 2010 winning scheme. After winning the Europan for Trondheim Norway, Point Supreme Architects, Alexandros Gerousis and Beth Hughes, have recently completed the second phase of the concept design and are preparing for the project to be realized. Recently, the project was identified as a pilot project for the Norwegian government’s ‘Cities of the Future’ program – currently one of only 6 in Norway and the second in Trondheim. The project will serve as an example of environmentally sustainable design strategies combined with innovative architecture – reflecting the ambitions and principles of Svartlamoen which has also been regulated as an eco-urban testing ground.

More about the winning project after the break.

After participating in workshops with the community of Svartlmoen to understand their real demands, the project advanced further while still emphasizing the scheme’s optimal organization of the program in response to the restrictions imposed by the long, narrow geometry of the site.

The apartments are organized around an enclosed courtyard that can be accessed via a public ramp that traverses the site. The deliberate positioning of public uses at the center of the site transgresses the typical model of mixed use buildings (cultural and commercial uses at ground floor connected to the street with housing above) and embeds it in the heart of the project, forcing direct connection and relationship to all the residences of the development. The strong contrast of the rather closed and brute outer façades, with the wooden and open inner façade, together with the art, turns the courtyard into a surprising discovery at the core of the site.