22 minute read
It started of with cabins and barracks at Haugland
Haugland, had huge potential. As a team, splitting the costs, they could both raise their standards. The foundation made some propositions for things that would be for common usage, a shooting gallery in the basement at the center and a swimming pool. But what should the pool look like?
Lund- Mathiesen was checking out the Nordic standards. It wasn’t just about getting a water slide and those kinds of extras. The size of the pool mattered as well.
– Eventually two hundred students were to arrive, so they decided to make a decent 25-meter pool.
– Initially it was not intended for the foundation to pay for that part of the Haugland building. How much did you have left over to spend on it?
– Zero crowns. Lund-Mathiesen and Magne Bjergene were together at the financing negotiations. The whole project was in danger of being terminated. Lund-Mathiesen and the core group were then called in for a meeting with the Mayor and Municipal Director, which was to have important consequences. They agreed to secure the continued construction of the pool at Haugland and by this, the development of the entire area. All the while, the municipality and the foundation believed that the financial situation would sort itself out. As the fierce struggle to secure the benefits was going on, the architect Olav Hovland kept working alongside others, with the physical manifestation of the project: the drawing, the digging, and the building.
It started of with cabins and barracks at Haugland Big freedom, big responsibility. The Haugland- area turns into the life work of architect Olav Hovland.
It is April 2019, and there is a gathering in front of the administration building at UWC. Architect Olav Hovland, Director of Development Arne Osland, member of the RCN Board and Council, together with Operational Leader Vidar Jensen are all looking out over the Haugland area. We will let Hovland tell the story about the facilities. – I have a picture of myself walking out here on the plot in 1982, on the 6th of January in minus 26 degrees and a lot of snow. Back then, there were 9-10 people living in the neighborhood, begins Hovland. We look around and see some students going from the boarding school towards the canteen, and employees and users from the Haugland Center walking around on the path. The winter has been mild and wet. But today it is clear skies and calm. Ivar Lund-Mathiesen who is also part of the tour,
1. Maika Te Amo and Shikma Bar-On from the first generation.
2. Full action in the pool.
3. Feeling groovy - music activities in the Boat House, generously donated by the Høegh Foundation.
gives an introduction by laying out some large blueprint drawings from 1987 onto the tarmac outside the administration building. The plans show the bay and landscape from the fjord up through the farmland to the mountains. The area seems to be divided into levels with the buildings spreading out over the leveled landscape.
– Farm?!
An observing participant has taken a closer look at the drawings. “Yes, to run a farm as a part of the College was also one of the early ideas. The idea came after a student trip to Atlantic College”, Hovland tells us since he is the one, broadly speaking, designed the Haugland Rehab Center and RCN. The area had in fact been farmland for generations. Christian Bekker was the last proprietor of the grand villa located at the top, overlooking the area - the Bekker house. Bekker had only a few farmer neighbors and no children. In 1976 he wrote in his will that the 1200 acres of land were to go to Sogn & Fjordane Red Cross. The unmarried lawyer was a hundred years old when he wrote his will. The gift came with a whole list of conditions. The plot and house in Haugland were written over in 1980 to the Red Cross from the municipality in accordance with Bekker’s wishes. Red Cross then began elaborating the plans for how to use the area.
From zero to everything Just to recap: from 1982 to 2018, 52 buildings were erected here, both large and small. In addition to Olav Hovland, the architect group CUBUS played an important role. Architects from ARKI were part of the final step of the construction at the Haugland Center. Statsbygg were the contractors throughout the process. In total the buildings cover a surface area of 18000 m2, approximately 9000 m2 each at RCN and the Haugland Center. The first construction was the road from the Bekker house to the property below. In 1982 the Bekker house was refurbished and the plans for the area were made. In 1983 there were five finished cabins (in the style of “Ålhytte”). In 1984 the boat houses underneath were fixed up, before the work began on what was called the Holiday, leisure- and activity center. By 1986 they had added the barracks for asylum seekers, and in 1992 they completed the Health Sports’ Center. Only at this stage was the road leading from the present school area to the Health Sports Center, paved. RCN was built between 1994 and 1995. First the classrooms, residences, canteen, and auditorium and also the Rektor and Teachers Houses. After that came the Høegh Center and new storage houses, before the library came in 2002. The Silent House was raised in 2006, the operation and maintenance house, the Barn, came in 2008,
before the Thor Heyerdahl and Henri Dunant houses were inaugurated in 2014.
– So, the work to create a daycare center here began even before the plumbing was in place?
– There was a lot going on here before the water pipes were laid, and it was Magne Bjergene who set the wheels in motion. He had already been in the picture in early 1981 as the municipality’s Chairman Secretary. And prior to his coming here there was only the Bekker house and the farmhouses over here. For a long period, the water was pulled from the well which is not unusual. But there turned out to be salt in it. I remember how the milk curdled when I added it to my coffee.
Unshakeable faith Once the Norwegian government support was in order, the architect group CUBUS and Hovland started making sketches. Detailed sketches with measurements and calculations were completed in 1994. The first projections took place in February and the construction drawings were ready in May, the same year. The construction began in July 1994 and was completed on the 15th of August 1995. It was a particularly intense planning and building period without any margins for error. Many of those involved were former AC students. There were heated discussions about the architectural expression.
The 15th of August that year, on the same day as the College’s completion, my parents and I got in the car in Nordmøre and drove to Haugland. I was to become part of the very first generation -or pioneers as Rektor Tony Macoun liked to call us. Upon our arrival, we felt the sparkling newness of the area. It was as though I could feel the tarmac’s softness when we got out of the car to register by the administration building. That could not be true I thought. But was it, in fact?
– Sure, it was, given that the final touch was made right up until the opening, says Hovland.
– Have you all turned into megalomaniacs? Each new phase of the project demanded a great deal of strength at all levels, will-power and an urge to discover. Ingolfur Arnarson, Iceland’s first Viking settler, set sail here from Dalsfjord. Was it the spirit akin to this that helped the municipality decide to go for this?
As Fjaler municipality had made their decision, the Aftenposten newspaper came to Fjaler and interviewed the spokesman, Mayor Magnar Vagstad: The ripples, the spokesman remarks and lights a new cigarette. – Try to think of the ripple effect as the creation of new employment as well as increased
Vidar Jensen was in charge of all phases for building the Nordic Yard. business and tourism. Additionally, we would get a school that will enrich us both culturally and intellectually.
– Fjaler has a population of around 3000 and has invested a total of seven million NOK for this project-have you turned into megalomaniacs?
– In our municipality we have never had to deal with a case with such big consequences. The money is granted for a five-year period, and we will get it in return many times over, observes the Labor-spokesperson.
The municipality’s decision received support from Hovland and the CUBUS plan, as estimates needed to be made about the expansion and its synergies. The groundwork started with basics such as sun and wind conditions, the view, landscape, and vegetation.
Lund- Mathiesen writes in his report that the plot is only exposed to westerly wind. Otherwise, the plot has a total coastline of six kilometers which will prove important for the area’s disposition from the architects. Hovland thought of the area as four zones. From the Bekker house towards the west, was zone one, which comprised the existing buildings of the Haugland center. Zone two was the subsequent addition to the Haugland center. The third zone was the administration, education, and study buildings for UWC RCN, and zone four was the student residences and the Teachers’ houses.
– We considered different ways of allocating the buildings here, Hovland explains during the historical tour of the campus. He turns towards the face of the mountain behind the College, points at the steep, almost overhanging wall: “We suspected the mountain would be a source of danger. We had the situation checked out and got confirmation that rock-fall was indeed a real danger. That is why part of the area is regulated as unfit for building purposes.
Today the top road above Haugland is closed after large recent rock falls, with further danger confirmed.
Hovland shows us the area stretching from the auditorium/canteen to the student residences and the old road by the mountainside behind the campus. In his plans from 1998 there were eight boarding houses with rooms for 25 students in
each one. There was to be a room for house parents in each of the eight student residences. They were to be grouped in three smallholdings, and most of the houses would have turf on the roof with skylight coming in. Every house was to have a guest toilet, a sports and wood shelter, a living room with a tea kitchen and an oven, and mezzanine. Every room was meant to accommodate four students.
From bath house to swimming pool Among all the facilities proposed by the architects, was a ‘bathhouse” with an outdoor shower and changing room for summers. For the sake of preservation, the coastline remained untouched, except for the Study building in zone three.
The architects got their inspiration from the Nordic tradition of democratic principles and harmony between nature and building style. When the guided tour progresses towards the Haugland Center we get to see a concrete example of nature meeting architecture. The slanted, grass-covered roof serves as a kind of second face for the house and has, throughout the years, had goats grazing on it.
The planning of RCN happened while the Haugland center was being built. Soon enough the interdependence of the two buildings became visible. The Director of the Haugland Center, Inger Johanne Osland, shares an insight to a problem that they literally dug up during the construction of this building: “UWC had a tight budget but a deep well of ideas.” But as Lund-Mathiesen was saying, they were thinking big. Also, when conceiving the swimming pool. Eventually the size turned out to be the smallest of problems. As the architect of the building, Hovland created a project group with Advisory Consultants for the construction, water, sanitation, and electricity. During a meeting they found out that the ground needed to be checked by a specialist consultant. This was done, and as a result they discovered a complicated soil containing silt and clay. – There was of course, rock at the bottom, architect Hovland adds: “But to build the pool, one had to place pillars that went through the clay down to the rock. So now the house rests on fifteen-twenty meters long pillars. The pool is too heavy to stand right on clay. In addition, one had to secure flexible transitions between the rocks, the pillars, and the
1 The baking house is built on the foundation of an old homestead.
2. Jean Paul and Anna Genestier shortly after arrival in 1995.
3. Meditation in the Silent House, a gift from Marianne Andresen.
swimming pool, to avoid movement that would make it crack.
The project group was well prepared for cracks in the budget. But the building of Haugland suffered a setback due to problems with the pool.
– How much more expensive was the new solution?
– The concrete and pillar work cost around eight million of the total cost for the Health Sports’ building that ran up to around 44 million11. The cost for the work with the pillars was relatively high in comparison to what it would be with normal fundament. Add to that sewage and drain-related costs. It was during this phase that one also established the bio - cleansing facilities with a drain to the fjord. This led to some serious talks with people from Fjaler municipality. On top of that there were further complications when the bill arrived. It was more expensive than one had thought- and there were uncertainties about who could cover the costs. Accounts had been made in two distinct ways, with and without VAT. If RCN were to pay, there would be no money left to build the College. The Red Cross on their side, had already built their training facilities with sufficient capacity to accommodate RCN. The Haugland Center was in danger of going down the drain if there were to be no RCN after all. This interdependence was perceived by Magne Bjergene who was able to capitalize on it during the negotiations between both groups. Magne considered the big picture and gambled on everything turning out well. And that is how things went after all, thanks to the participation and influence of strong characters. It would not have been possible today. – Why not? – Political processes now happen in accordance with tighter restrictions and rules. Back then there was a way of speeding up decision- making that there is less room for today.
Tight budget, ambitious environmental profle Hovland wrote in his first report on RCN’s architecture: “One might also say that Nordic architecture is deeply rooted in social realities.” It is a tradition that combines the healthy ‘farmer mentality’ with poetry. Modern Nordic architecture is in that sense a direct ennobling of the timeless farm and fisherman tradition. The fusion of the rational and the imaginary, the universal and the specific, but also the collective and the individual, must be borne in mind as the construction of Haugland continues. A cosmopolitan village of this kind is something unique in our corner of the country, which in itself constitutes a great challenge.
11 Included in the total costs: inventory & equipment.
But already back in the eighties, Hovland was thinking about the environmental aspects: about the building’s intervention in the landscape but also the possibilities inherent in building facilities from the ground up to enable sustainable usage for the future. – Sewage cleaning was installed. But otherwise, it was not easy to pull through with the environmental initiatives.
The cleaning station was built under the pool at the Haugland Center. The school hooked itself up to this. In total, our budget became much tighter than we had expected. The planners had to start saving for the school to be built.
Environment and sustainability were the top priorities when he started planning RCN. Part of the plan was to make use of fjord heat, but the project was constantly in saving modus. That is why the planners and builders had to opt for solutions that seemed cost-efficient at the time, but proved more expensive for both budget and nature, in the long run. One example is that the heating became mostly electric. The dream of a more wholesome, recycling-based campus had to be discarded.
– To what degree did you as the architect have to state the grounds for your choices in the reports that came from the foundation’s planners and organizers and to what extent could you think freely?
– Only to a small extent we were bound to the reports. Nonetheless it was a complicated and fragmented process. Collaborations with the architect group CUBUS led me to work alternately in Bergen and Dale. Sitting in Oslo. were Tom Gresvig, Ivar Lund-Mathiesen and Otto Kaltenborn. In Fjaler, we had Magne Bjergene and his office.
– What other effects did the changing economy have?
– We had an absolute maximum threshold of 70 million NOK. Then we figured out that the solution with least consequences would be to get rid of a couple of student lodgings and have five- person rooms instead of four.
– Each student residence had a Mentor house connected to it. l. Did fewer boarding houses mean fewer houses for the house mentors too?
– It did in fact. And yet we were forced to cut more costs. We discarded the original library.
– Oh dear, that seems like a radical initiative for an institution of education offering IB- exams!
– Yes, you can say that. But this was considered as the first step. The construction was to proceed when the first generation had completed their first year. When the new students arrived in the fall of 1996,
Winter at Haugland.
we needed an extra Boarding house namely Iceland House where chemistry teacher Marina Willemoes became the first House Mentor. There were still more struggles for funds and support, right up to the very end. And this struggle for the financing became a voluntary operation involving everybody, including the architects. They made illustrations, models, and materials for presentations, consequence extrapolations, meetings, seminars and more.
– At one point, Prince Charles was to visit as the representative of UWC International to promote the project. But then during a game of polo he was playing in front of Diana, he fell off his horse and broke his arm. After some back and forth it was decided against his coming over. But HM Queen Sonja replaced him. So consequently, a presentation of the area became necessary. The same thing happened for the Nobel Institute’s and then the Minister’s visit.
RKN has this peculiar paradox about it: tied up in the grand scheme of things while at the same time being located in a small fjord bay in little Fjaler.
Collaboration The pool was soon put to daily use by the RCN students for recreational purposes, exercise or as a location for voluntary work. Students were trained to give swimming lessons for patients at the Haugland Center, and free diving for students at the Camps School. Integration was a key word in this work.
Site specific analyses were also important, the quality of nature, culture, and fresh air. What should one continue building on? There were talks about integrating groups of different users like clients at Rehab, pupils at the Camp School and students. Practical solutions to both academic and social life within this enclosed area where needed. Was any of this possible architecturally? What about the sources of inspiration such as the existing UWC-schools like Atlantic College, Pearson College, and maybe even Norwegian village smallholdings? Maybe the differences between these various societal forms were not so big after all?
– The architect group CUBUS and I spent a long time working on the architecture, especially the student residences. Basically, the RCN buildings and facilities are shaped like a village with a visual language that closely resembles a Norwegian cluster smallholding, says Hovland, who also describes the efforts to the work site specifically:
– Where there once had been a source of water- the
Norway House 2000. well- we placed the laundry. The building where the natural sciences are taught was named after the Eckbo foundation and is located by the fjord. As at UWC Pearson, the students here can go directly from their lab out to the fjord to do their observations. The new bakery is situated on houses that one believes had open fires.
For many years, the students now have participated in local crafts activities by traveling out to the village. Olav Hovland’s wife Thora opened her door and taught them among other things, the baking of ‘lefse’, a kind of potato pancake. Jan Haugen is another local craftsman who was active in what was then called Nordic Studies. Haugen taught wood carving and folk dance. Students would go with Magne Bjergene to his farm and experience the slaughter of sheep and
With 200 students at the College and more than 100 patients and visitors to Haugland, it is often lively out on the fjord.
more. Surprisingly enough, it was traditional folk dance that turned out to be the most popular activity for the international students.
Built to last? Why did they build so close to the fjord? Hovland explains that the Red Cross initially prohibited construction along the beach - out of respect for the landscape.
– But then there followed reports of rock-fall. This meant additional restrictions, and one had to build along the fjord to have enough space. There is also a psychological factor when building concrete houses that are threatened by rock-fall. So, we were asked to reconsider. First Statsbygg wanted to organize a whole new architect competition. But both Magne and the Red Cross thought - and said - that there was no time for that. That is how we got permission to put forth a new project. The project was to make greater use of the beach line. – What characterizes the landscape here are the steep cliffs on the east side of the fjord. They create a kind of lagoon marking a strong and distinct frame around the buildings. The mass of buildings has northern and southern parts that are connected by the road. A main idea has been to integrate the college buildings with the Haugland center. So, the architects not only integrated the landscape but also nature, climate, and pre existing buildings, namely the Rehab Center that is built in a heavier style than the college. The administration building at RCN is designed to create a smoother transition to the heavier building in the north. The buildings’ positioning is meant to enhance the bay’s coherent totality. That is why the little island is so important. From there one can also see the landscape with its mountains, those parts easily overlooked when gazing at the fjord. I built a bridge going over there early on, possibly as early as 1986, Hovland says: – The pathway over on the island is built from materials used for the building of train tracks in Flåm. The actual bridge is a floating bridge, so for that we used different kinds of material.
– Recycling after all. So, you realized that sustainability -vision of yours in some areas? – Yes, and this project also had a fortunate positive economic effect. We were able to complete it using employment funds. Hovland has tried to facilitate more meeting points at other places on campus with zones including benches and such. But at this school where there is so much to be done; there is hardly time to just “hang out”.
– It is not enough having a meeting place when the goal is to collaborate, the architect observes:
– It is best to have a task to solve together with others. This is also true for Hovland, who has experienced it in his own life. Even as a private person he has contributed to the cultural exchange between school and village.
– The host family program has been of great importance, says Hovland, who has been hosting a couple of students from the very first generation and onwards. He and his family opened their homes on weekends and during holidays for three students from the pioneering generation: Mastoura from Afghanistan, Diwakar from Nepal, and Dipo from Nigeria. Also, in the following fifteen years they continued as a host family.
And for simply sitting outside, one ideally wants the weather conditions to be better than normal Haugland-weather. Today it is clear and quiet, yet too cold for sitting still. We keep wandering over the island towards the pier. From here we look over the entire facilities, from the Leif Høegh building to the main building, with the auditorium, canteen and library, via the Boarding houses and classrooms and up to the Haugland center. The island offers a view from the fjord to the mountain, and right now the buildings and mountains are mirrored in the fjord. From here it is apparent how close to the fjord the Science-building is.
– With UWC Pearson College as an inspiration for the Science-buildings, the students could change clothes in the hall and go directly out to the beach to take samples. The Eckbo foundation contributed 7-10 million NOK to the building. In the same way, Lions’ donated 20 of the 44 million it cost to construct the Haugland center.
– But there were never enough funds to run the farm…
– To do that, one would need a common understanding of what good horse riding is, for example. The term ecology when working with pets or agriculture is interpreted very differently from one culture to the next. But there were in fact animals at the Haugland Center in the early years.
– There was near unlimited potential in the beginning, given the great amount of freedom and trust you received. Was this a big project do you think?
– The school and Haugland Center are my biggest projects to date. And I am unbelievably grateful for
