SPACEGROUP

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Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance

in Paphos, Cyprus

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SpaceGroup and ASH has won a competition to design the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance in Paphos, Cyprus.

Our concept starts with the entry garden in the existing building. This starts the sequence of inside/outside spaces. The compound idea brings the two buildings together, and does the stepping to the north to keep them in proportion to one another.

The inner courtyard is the heart of the complex, through which all the main movements in the space are branched, both between the two buildings and between the streets "ΜαρίαςΣυγκλητικής" and "ΑνδρεαΧαραλαμπίδη". Its design is based on the Mediterranean, traditional, inner courtyard, which is an integral part of the neoclassical houses of Cyprus, where in this particular case, it takes on the role of open space reception.

Cyprus Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance

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ANKERET

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Ruten + Havneparken

Ruten + Havneparken

The Anchor

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RUTEN is a story about making junk space beautiful, accessible, safe, skateable, fun, green, quiet, collective, and free.

Photo: Jeroen Musch

Photo: Jeroen Musch

Ruten

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ØKERN

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An estimated 10,000 people will live in Økern within the next 12 years. Major investments in tunnels and infrastructure, combined with accessibility (regional node), political consolidation through municipal sub-plans, and programmatic diversity, will ensure tailor-made connections between existing and new local environments.

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Økern Masterplan

CABINS

Eve Images

Eve Images

Eve Images

Eve Images

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Eve Images

Eve Images

16 Cabins on the Norwegian coast

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GAUSTABANEN

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Gaustabanen is in the process of reorganizing from a military facility to a public facility, and wishes to make adjustments to accommodate this adjusted user group. Public uses now extend to the accommodation of events, parties, and festivals in addition to daily service for tourists from mid-February to mid-October. This study covers the areas connected to the top and bottom stations for the track, new supply route, parking, delivery lifts and rail transport linking the base station with the remaining lift system.

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Gaustabanen

OSLO CENTRAL

STATION

Photo of the inside of the model

Photo of the inside of the model

Our ambition is for the Oslo Central Station to be a celebration of travel itself, prioritizing easy orientation, logistical clarity, and efficiency rather than a shopping mall in disguise. We want to liberate and strengthen each architectural element with its dedicated functions and give them all a clear connection to the station axis

VISION

Oslo S model in the dark

Oslo S model in the dark

Oslo Central Train Station

Photo Ansis Starks

Tromsø Harbor

Terminal

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Photo Ansis Starks

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Tromsø Harbor Terminal

AKER BRYGGE

Visual art made with light on the sea side facade of verkstedhallen

Visual art made with light on the sea side facade of verkstedhallen

From Rådhusplassen, to Nationaltheatre, to Tjuvholmen, to Skillebekk, to Oslo fjord - all roads lead to Aker Brygge, a commercial center in Oslo for almost 25 years.

Aker brygge facade in the evening on a clear day

Aker brygge facade in the evening on a clear day

Aker Brygge Waterfront Development

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TEZE BAZAAR

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The Teze Bazaar, a 70-year old landmark in the center of Baku, is prepared for a new vision of market, public space, trading, culture, and meeting place in the city. Historically

speaking markets have been one of the most important social catalysts in the city, a space for everyone, with a low threshold to participate. These unique cities within the city

have an atmosphere and characteristic defined by their intensity, sounds, smells, textures and colors, and the feeling of getting lost and finding the unexpected.

Situated between new, medium-high end residential development and small scale, low income neighborhood to the west (Kubinka), Teze has been irresponsive to the change

in the community as well as culture. We are witnessing a contemporary shift in values that are challenging the typology and culture of the traditional market. A shift where an

economy of expediency – supermarkets, fast food, big box shopping – threaten the value placed on local quality, the person-to-person exchange of goods and services, and the vital importance of social interaction.

It is the ambition of the new Teze Bazaar to revitalize and reimagine the traditional market while making space for the future meeting place of the city.

Teze Bazar, Baku, Azerbaijan

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Ny York

Cultural District

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In 2012, SPACEGROUP completed the refurbishment of the Indigo Textile Factory, constructed between 1896-1899 by Norwegian architects Ove Ekman and Einar Smith.Sitting alongside the Akerselva River in Oslo, the original building had a rich history of uses but was partially destroyed in a fire in the 1980s.The area was historically referred to as ‘Ny York’ (New York) due to its explosive development in the 1860’s.Like its sister city, the area reflects a focus on art, architecture, and design.

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Ny York Cultural District

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Space Group and MVRDV are one of three teams asked to submit a masterplan for the Norwegian town of Madla-Revheim, the main development area outside of Stavanger. Commissioned to develop a model of sustainable growth that treats development principles, transportation systems, and built structures as parts of a whole, the team proposed to concentrate 4,000 housing units on the edge of the 780 acre site.This preserved the heart of the development for open, green space, public programs and athletic facilities.

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Madla Revheim Masterplan

Oslo National Library and Stenersen Museum of Fine Arts

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OMA/SPACEGROUP winning entry proposed a central cultural complex (130.000 m2) acting as an urban organizer while accommodating the presence of the Nobel Peace Prize Center and three commercial lots set aside for future development.

Oslo National Library and Stenersen Museum of Fine Arts

Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich

Suprematist Composition: White on White 1918

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ONE + ONE

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Plus House, Oslo

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The Clarion Hotel and Congress redefines the classical atrium hotel into a new, dynamic typology. Unlike the American or Asian hotel atrium with a centralized and vertical, magnificent but one-dimensional void under a glass cover, the void here is given a three-dimensional spatial quality, the result of a rotational logic to optimize the view from each room.

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Clarion Hotel Trondheim

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We want to move
our city forward
while preserving
what makes Louisville,
Louisville

Mayor Greg Fischer
Vision Louisville

In 2013, SPACEGROUP was approached by the city of Louisville, KY to lead a city-wide initiative that brought together private enterprise, community and governmental organizations, non-profits, cultural institutions, and citizens to define a 25-year vision plan for their city.

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HOW DID WE GET HERE

Louisville is well postitioned to be a strong regional center, but has a long history of stasis. The current population of the core city is barely larger than it was in 1900. Several events have dramatically affected the form and function of Louisvilles built environment.

Louisville was historically developed as a shipping hub on the Ohio River. Positioned on the Ohio River, Louisville was a critical port allowing for the movement of goods from east to west.

The urban fabric that began around the shipping industry was enhanced in 1891 with the Olmsted Park System, consisting of three major parks, fifteen neighborhood parks, and six connecting parkways.

Vision Louisville

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The opening of Filipstad, a post-industrial site connecting Oslo to the world, provides a unique opportunity of starting from scratch - open, interconnected, and intelligent. Inherent in Filipstad is a uniqueness of structure, scale, typology, morphology, program, and artificiality, existing as a raw beauty devoid of the stylistic judgments controlling the rest of the city.

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Filipstad Hotel and Terminal

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Sandnes Learning Center

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The new building in Havneparken is meant to increased the cooperation between Sandnes Learning Centre (SLS), Multilingual Children and Youth (FBU) and the Refugee Unit.

It is located in the immediate vicinity of the new City Hall and has its own bus stop in Jernbaneveien. In addition, it is within walking distance to Ruten Park. The parking is solved in a neighboring building owned by Sandnes municipality.

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FK1

The Scandinavian 8 Million City – 3 Countries, 4 Metropolitan Cities, 2 Capitals all connected in 150 minutes.

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European population density

European population density

This is the new vision for a fully integrated Scandinavian labor market based on green mobility. In an increasingly globalized economy the demand for efficiency and mobility is increasing. City regions have become the engines in developing the knowledge and information-based community. Bigger and stronger regions are needed to attract and retain people and companies who will create the wealth of the future.

oktober 1984, Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts - Tidning

oktober 1984, Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts - Tidning

The Scandinavian 8 Million City

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RUPP
BASKETBALL
ARENA

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SPACEGROUP with Inside-Outside Landscape Architects and Adams Kara Taylor Structural Engineers provided the vision for a new Rupp Arena Arts and Entertainment District in Lexington, Kentucky.

Rupp Arena

Hammerbakken
House

Photo of whole house in the dark

Photo of whole house in the dark

photo outdoor pool and staircase

photo outdoor pool and staircase

Hammerbakken House is a mediation between the highly particular needs of a handicapped child and the domestic needs of a family. A low-budget private residence, the client requested ’quantity over quality’ in order to maximize the child’s usable space and on-site experiences.

entrance area with staircase up to back garden

entrance area with staircase up to back garden

Hammerbakken House

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Located within a historically listed Garden City area, restrictions to alterations of the original façade compelled SPACEGROUP to develop a completely new interior logic within the existing shell.

Located within a historically listed Garden City area, restrictions to alterations of the original façade compelled SPACEGROUP to develop a completely new interior logic within the existing shell.

Villa O is located in a residential area north of Oslo with sweeping views of the city and fjord. The house, designed in 1952 by the architect Jens Selmer, needed a total renovation.

On the ground floor, we introduced a sculptural staircase in black lacquered solid wood as a single organizing element. The staircase acts as a divider between the dining room, the formal living room, and the fireplace.

On the ground floor, we introduced a sculptural staircase in black lacquered solid wood as a single organizing element. The staircase acts as a divider between the dining room, the formal living room, and the fireplace.

Villa O

Røverstaden

Photo of concert stage in the basement

Photo of concert stage in the basement

Neon lights art over the enterance to the club

Neon lights art over the enterance to the club

Tucked below the entry plaza of the Oslo Concert House, 4000 m2 of dormant club culture waited for a jump start. Formerly the legendary Club 7 (klubb sju), Munkedamsveien 15 is a historic venue that has enriched the Oslo cultural scene with experimental theatre, poetry, gallery, film, library, cafe, kids, dance and concerts.

Miles Davis, Tom Waits, BB King, Chick Corea and many more took the stage at Club 7 during its mythical years from 1971- 1985.

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Røverstaden

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FIRE

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The Oslo municipality organized a competition for a new firestation in Bjørvika, opening new possibilities for the public facility and for the neighbourhood as a place. The new plot lifts the firestation in the light, to a new visibility and possible encounter with the audience it is supposed to serve. The square in front of the building is designed to be a pleasant public space and, at the same time, to cope with the requirements of emergency vehicles.

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FIRE

Pitstop

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Pitstop

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Chayhana Teahouse, Azerbaijan

Wide exterior shot rendering

Wide exterior shot rendering

Aerial view drawing

Aerial view drawing

Clean version of exterior render

Clean version of exterior render

Chayhana Teahouse, Azerbaijan

Viking Age Museum

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Upon entering, visitors descend below the Oseberg Viking ship, reframed in a large vitrine and providing a rare and spectacular view of its underside, to the new lobby. Unlike a painting gallery with objects hung on the walls, our collection will largely display artifacts in a field condition, providing 360-degrees views. The architecture and programs are organized to maximize flows and friction of people and space.

Upon entering, visitors descend below the Oseberg Viking ship, reframed in a large vitrine and providing a rare and spectacular view of its underside, to the new lobby. Unlike a painting gallery with objects hung on the walls, our collection will largely display artifacts in a field condition, providing 360-degrees views. The architecture and programs are organized to maximize flows and friction of people and space.

The current Vikingtidsmuseet, through the fortuitous mishap of past urban ambitions, remains strongly ‘connected’ to the waters of the Oslofjord.

Together with the Norsk Folkemuseum, the two form a unique oasis on the Bygdøy peninsula, a critical mass of culture in a lush suburban environment. The story of a third museum begins with cultivating this condition, the building as its own object in the collection.

Complementing the strong form of the Viking Museum, our proposed extension explores the contrasts between building and nature

Complementing the strong form of the Viking Museum, our proposed extension explores the contrasts between building and nature

Viking Museum

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Zakusala Island

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Distances to key cities

Distances to key cities

Riga is the Baltic’s emergent financial and commercial capital with one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Since the independence of Latvia in 1991, and the subsequent entry into the European Union, foreign investment has flourished, with expanded activity in all significant areas of Latvia’s economy. 

Latvia’s geographic position gives it a unique position as a Pan-Nordic center, and European capital at the point of convergence between Russia and the EU. Moscow and St. Petersburg, both within 1 hour of Riga, represent a population in excess of 15 million Russians who in the foreseeable future will have access to Europe via Latvia. 

Zaķusala Island

Great cities are great for everyone.

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The Oxhead project proposes a new, honest vision for architecture motivated by nature and a holistic view for better health, leading to higher productivity, greater engagement, and social awareness. Nourishment, comfort, ergonomics, transparency, adaptiveness are important components of this design ideology.

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Oxhead

Nordic House puts a Norwegian footprint in Sweden, marking a future of continued collaboration, exchange, and mutual interest in cultural heritage.

Image: MIR

Image: MIR

The site possesses all the critical qualities of the Norwegian landscape: woods, hills, fjord, and uninterrupted views of the horizon. These natural elements provide an ideal backdrop for an interpretation of Norwegian identity as adaptable and fearless, with an aesthetic and ethical sensitivity.

The site possesses all the critical qualities of the Norwegian landscape: woods, hills, fjord, and uninterrupted views of the horizon. These natural elements provide an ideal backdrop for an interpretation of Norwegian identity as adaptable and fearless, with an aesthetic and ethical sensitivity.

The site possesses all the critical qualities of the Norwegian landscape: woods, hills, fjord, and uninterrupted views of the horizon. These natural elements provide an ideal backdrop for an interpretation of Norwegian identity as adaptable and fearless, with an aesthetic and ethical sensitivity.

Nordic House

TREENIGHET

Klimadiagram

Klimadiagram

Vi ønsker med Nytorget i Stavanger å skape et økosystem og grønt byrom som blir et ikon for sin tid og sin by. - En tid som peker fremover mot nye måter å organisere kultur, arbeid, handel og dagligliv.

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Vi har skapt et større, mer solfylt og mer inkluderende Nytorg gjennom at torget er utvidet i areal fra 650 m2 til 10 000 m2 med en rekke nye fysiske og visuelle koblinger mellom bygg og byrom. Jugendbygget og St. Petri kirke innlemmes på selve torget. Med Jugendmuren som fundament tilfører vi en langstrakt paviljong som muliggjør utvidet opphold på plassen og rammer inn den eksisterende Plantanlønn-trerekken. Tilsammen danner Paviljongen, jugendmuren og tærne en treenighet som blir ryggraden i plassrommet og binder sammen de to nivåene.

Jugendmuren ble bygget som et offentlig tiltak for å sysselsette arbeidstagere i en omstillingstid. Målet med vår plan er på tilsvarende vis å skape grunnlag for nye arbeidsplasser. Gjennom å tilrettelegge for flere møter, nye idéer og partnerskap på Nytorget med borgerne som aktive medskapere. Ny bygningsmasse skaper rom for over 1000 nye arbeidsplasser med Nytorget som adresse. Vi vil utforme eksisterende, og ny bygningsmasse på en måte som genererer flest mulige transaksjoner mellom ute og inne og på tvers av torget.

Nytorget skal sette en ny standard for programmering, utforming og drift av byrom og bygg som gjør at Stavanger tilegner seg erfaring og ny innsikt som kan skaleres opp og skape endring i en større sammenheng.

Nytorget

Photo of swimming pool being built

Photo of swimming pool being built

Blue Moon House

Aerial shot of neighborhood

Aerial shot of neighborhood

The municipality of Groningen invited Toyo Ito to design a master plan to trigger and redefine the boundaries of the city as they were extending. The architect called the operation ‘Blue Moon Festival,’ and invited four international architects to design a building in the center of Groningen – in our case in the hidden street Achter de Barakken – and one in the future extension of the city, Europapark.

Shot of site with graffiti

Shot of site with graffiti

Blue Moon House

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The Code

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Our design is predicated on the idea that the contemporary hotel is an extension of the city. The Legends Hotel brings together important stories that connect the Latvian people in a space that is open, inclusive, and inspiring.

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The Code

A violin in a loft

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B Loft

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OSLO
BUSINESS
REGION

photo of design office table

photo of design office table

Oslo Business Region aims to construct a stronger ecosystem for startups and the work fields of the future. They requested an office that provided autonomy and simultaneously belonged in the Mesh coworking community in Tordenskioldsgate, and the city beyond. The space is designed to facilitate new structures for collaboration, communication and has the flexibility to serve needs yet to be defined.

Close up shot of design office table

Close up shot of design office table

Oslo Business Region Headquarters

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OVERTURE

The Culture House is all too often a conglomeration of disparate programs coupled into an overtly simplistic urban gesture. The public domain within is left to a series of residual cavities within a maze-like organization.

Our strategy is a simple one: allowing Kristiansund Opera and Culture House to function as a single entity but also as a series of smaller, more manageable buildings, crystallizing the ambitions of several strong identities into one collective institution. By combining functions in a rational way based on their common interests and advantages, we establish 3 institutions in one complex.

Distribution of culture and knowledge through an extroverted and highly accessible presence in the city - maximizing friction, exploiting the in-between, strengthening identity - will inspire visitors for learning, play, search and discovery, entertainment and exchange.

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Kristiansund Opera House and Culture House

Slim Twin

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Located on a narrow plot and sandwiched between a historical customs building and the Oslo Central Station railroad tracks, the design of a new office and commercial building required both a sensitive and creative approach that heightened the value of new-and-old while creating a functional, efficient organization.

Located on a narrow plot and sandwiched between a historical customs building and the Oslo Central Station railroad tracks, the design of a new office and commercial building required both a sensitive and creative approach that heightened the value of new-and-old while creating a functional, efficient organization.

The relationship with the existing customs house was formulated with two ambitions - to create a harmony between the new and old, and to avoid strangling the protected customs building.

The relationship with the existing customs house was formulated with two ambitions - to create a harmony between the new and old, and to avoid strangling the protected customs building.

The relationship with the existing customs house was formulated with two ambitions: to create a harmony between the ‘new’ and the ‘old, and to avoid strangling the protected customs building. The solution was a slim volume, guided by the most efficient gross-to-net ratio in which all offices are exposed to façade and capable of direct venting. This slim proportion allows fora bonus public courtyard between the buildings, and the extra area is pushed upward, and shaved into a gabled form that allows sunlight into the courtyard. The extra height guarantees spectacular views of the city and fjord.

Slim Twin Office Building

V House

The V House roof terrace and lawn shot in the dark

The V House roof terrace and lawn shot in the dark

Glass walls, ceiling and floor.

Glass walls, ceiling and floor.

Located on a beautiful Norwegian island in the Oslofjord, this residence is designed as two landscapes connected by a fissure, weaving itself into a densely vegetated landscape with a steep fall to the sea.

The driveway in the sun with shadows cast by the contours of the house

The driveway in the sun with shadows cast by the contours of the house

V House

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We are living in ‘exponential’ times. The status quo is constantly redefining itself. The information technological revolution was a quantum leap in the content and performance of the library. Much of what we know today will be outdated tomorrow. The library needs a framework that facilitates simultaneously stability and flux, just-in-time-planning. Too specific and it will be paralyzed by its own inflexibility, too generic and it risks neutrality, losing its connection to place, diminishing its potential for stimulation

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Helsinki Library

Buildings

Buildings

Zero is More

Space Group was one of four finalists in the international competition for the transformation of the Postgirobygget in Oslo. Built in 1975 at the foot of Oslo Central Station, the building is one of the tallest and most visible in Oslo.

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ORGANIC GROWTH

To respond to this rapid rise, Space Group crafted a phased approach to the buildings transformation that orders and develops key regions and components at critical times.

1975:

1975:

Original building, height 81 m, 20 levels.

Post Zero Tower

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Norwegian
Civil Aviation
Authority
Headquarters

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In 2009, SPACEGROUP won the competition for Norway’s Federal Aviation Authority (Luftfartsilsynet) as it moved its headquarters from the capital of Oslo to the northern city of Bodø.

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Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority Headquarters

Drottninghög

‘One size fits none.’

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Drottninghög, a housing area 3 km northeast of Helsingborg centre – a ‘Million Programme’ area, a program in which Sweden built a million housing units between 1964 and 1974 – was to become a pilot project for sustainability: socially, economically, and environmentally. It was built on quantitative and programmatic ideals based on the notion ‘One size fits all.’

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Drottninghög, Sweden

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

African Independence
and Nordic Models

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Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Kenyatta International Conference Center, Nairobi, Kenya
1966–1973
Architect: Karl Henrik Nøstvik
Photo: © David Keith Jones

Kenyatta International Conference Center, Nairobi, Kenya
1966–1973
Architect: Karl Henrik Nøstvik
Photo: © David Keith Jones

The liberation of Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia in the 1960s coincided with the founding of state development aid in the Nordic countries, where there was widespread belief that the social democratic model could be exported, translated, and used for nation-building, modernization and welfare in Africa.

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

The leaders of the new African states wanted partners without a murky colonial past, and established solid bonds with the Nordic countries, built on a mutual belief in progress. During a few intense years in the 60s and 70s, Nordic architects contributed to the rapid process of modernization in this part of Africa.

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Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

These young architects found themselves in the field between building freedom and finding freedom: Building freedom denotes nation-building through city planning, infrastructure and industry, and institutions for education, health, and state bureaucracy, whereas finding freedom points at the modernist, experimental free area that emerged from the encounter between Nordic aid and African nation-building.

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

The exhibition at the Nordic Pavilion at la Biennale di Venezia is titled “FORMS OF FREEDOM: African Independence and Nordic Models”, and explores how modern Nordic architecture was an integral part of Nordic aid to East Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. The resulting architecture is of a scope and quality that has not previously been comprehensively studied or exhibited.

Exhibition model

Exhibition model

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

Annar Bjørgli, Nasjonalmuseet

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Venice Biennale 2014 – Forms of Freedom

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Bar P

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Bar P, Rotterdam

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motion melting
perspective
& gravity

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As part of Toyo It’s masterplan for the Blue Moon festival in Groningen, Space Group designed an architectural intervention along a coal wall on a former industrial site. The exhibition included a playground, an exhibition space for the video artist Tiong Ang, and a 200m long café with ice bar on rail tracks.

Blue Moon Europapark

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Helsingborg is one of the last cities in northern Europe to transform its waterfront. This tardiness gives us the virtue of hindsight. We have seen the dockyard developments of Europe look increasingly similar, largely due to a developer-driven market. Competition between cities has ironically only strengthened this trend, a by-product of oppositional theory. A step-change needs to occur with Helsingborg.

Like many of greater Helsingborg’s neighborhoods, the H+ site is inundated with industry and infrastructure, resulting in isolated, often monoprogrammatic islands. Many port cities have stagnated, unable to reinvent themselves nor inhabitation of the interesting ‘gray’ zones that constitute the transitions between land and sea. Formerly a place for the trading of goods, the waterfront of Helsingborg should again become a place of exchange - of culture, of information, of ideas – a new type of center, an open stage.

The enormity of port infrastructure quarters the city into semi-urbanized islands, often devoid of open space, or rather filled with space left open. We know the Harbor is not interested in compressing. We asked them.

We propose a conceptual re-stitching of the waterfront deep into the existing public life and nodes of the city. Grafted over the entire length of the city from Hamntorg to Västhamnen, the boardwalk is adaptive in form and spatial diversity – covering, protecting, disassociated, expansive, indeterminate and highly specific – according to use, placement, and people.

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Helsingborg, Sweden

Located in the north-east of Oslo, the area of Hasle is experiencing a new wave of development. Drawing upon Hasle’s wealth of historic industrial buildings, the developers of the properties wished to contribute to the creation of a new neighborhood.

Photo: Jeroen Musch

Photo: Jeroen Musch

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SPACEGROUP delivered a design and strategy that embraced the uncertainties of the project and provided a range of possible programs, floorplans, and phasing to counter a number of possible development scenarios.The starting point required a strategy that balanced optimal floor plates, façade-to-floor-area ratios, effective and flexible building volumes, and the proper placement of program typologies to ensure maximum value for stakeholders.

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Hasle, Norway

Studio

Contact

SPACEGROUP


(+ 47) 906 92 896

gary@spacegroup.no

Applications
applications@spacegroup.no

FROM THE
SPACEMAN

Architects still want to be architects. And despite the changes in economic structures, geopolitics, sovereignty, urbanization, technological advancement, building information systems, and the radically-liberating exponentially-increasing accessibility of knowledge for everyone on Earth, The Profession has failed to innovate.

We want to discuss another role for the architect. A role not consumed by the fight to ‘the bottom’ (the bid for the lowest, fastest, cheapest). Nor the role of the mind reader, interpreting weak intentions, vague ambitions, and generally unclear premises.

We can imagine a situation where our genuine enthusiasm and naïve optimism is not overrun by the cynicism of building opportunism.

We have a responsibility to society. It is the role we are trying to redefine. Architecture needs a ‘Mars moment’ when someone declares they want to go to Mars, people say he is an idiot, and then he builds a rocket.

And maybe he’s not such an idiot after all.

Partners

Gary Bates (US)

Architect, Partner

GARY BATES founded SPACEGROUP with Gro Bonesmo in 1999. The office quickly made its mark by winning major international competitions such as the Prostneset Ferry Terminal in Tromsø, the Vestbane National Library, the Filipstad Masterplan, and the Oslo Central Station.

Gary began a collaboration with Rem Koolhaas (OMA) in 1992 on such projects as the Educatorium (NL), Jussieu Library in Paris, Cardiff Bay Opera House, Samsung Headquarters in Seoul, and the Media Valley masterplan in Inchon Korea. Gary was principal in charge of the Asia department. He has been visiting teacher, lecturer, and critic at the University of Texas, the University of Kentucky, AHO, Syracuse University and the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, amongst others.

Gary is currently involved in SPACEGROUP projects worldwide, from Cote D’Ivoire, Novosibirsk Russia, Louisville USA, New York, and Azerbaijan. He studied architecture at Virginia Polytechnic University & State University.

gary@spacegroup.no

Gro Bonesmo (NO)

Architect, Partner

GRO BONESMO is co-founder and partner of SPACEGROUP and a professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO).

Gro has taught at the Oslo School of Architecture since 1999, and served as a visiting teacher, lecturer, and critic at Harvard University, the Berlage Institute, the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, KTH Stockholm, Syracuse University, and as a Visiting Professor at Columbia University. She served as the co-curator for the Nordic Pavillion at the 14th Venice Biennale, presenting “Forms of Freedom: African Independence and Nordic Models.” In the period of 1990-98, she collaborated with OMA/Rem Koolhaas, including Design Architect in charge for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin.

She holds a Master of Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University and is a graduate of the Norwegian University of Technology in Trondheim including studies at Sci-Arc and AHO.

gro@spacegroup.no

Team

Jens Niehues

Senior Architect, Project Leader

Carl Julius Claussen (NO)

Senior architect, Project Leader

Javier Elvira López de la Cova (ES)

Architect

Maya Laitinen (NO)

Architect

Naofumi Namba (JP)

Senior Architect

Maria Makri (CY)

Architect, BIM coordinator

Jens Johan Næsgaard (NO)

CFO

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