MADE IN SANDNES

MADE IN SANDNES

I. STATEMENTS

First statements, intentions and attempts on the developement of the innerharbor wasteland in Sandnes

Stavanger Oil Capital

Ullandhaug University campus

Forus Commercial/office district

SANDNES

Sandnes and the region

Bryne Agroculture

DEFINING A PLACE We are working in our hometown; Sandnes, which is the fastest growing city in Norway.

The city is predicted to grow even more,after the recent oil findings in fall 2011.

A new developement of Sandnes is now taking place in the municipality, but we think that the urban social prosesses are missing in their plans.

We want to make an alternative developement of Sandnes by implementing the city’s missing aspects to our site.

The site is a potential hotspot at the inner bay of Sandnes, and is at the current situation on the threshold of a major shift. The last resonance of the city’s industrial history is about to move out, and the land is ready for a new purpose and a new use.

The 10 000 students in the region are not visible in the cityscapes, and we think they are the KEY to a good developement. Our site will be filled with student activities mixed with other related public and private programs, as a “super urbanised” inner city hotspot. This area will reach out and connect with the rest of the city, as an alternative developement.

A fast growing city Today Sandnes is Norways fastest growing city, with just under 70 000 inhabitants.

The pressure on housing, kindergardens, schools, nursing homes is reaching its limits as the new oil found is predicting 30 000 new jobs within few years.

The last remains of the factories are moving out of the inner harbor, and 2 large areas are free at the inner harbour.Sandnes has the opportunity to correct the mistakes from the past, and reconnect the city with the sea!

The parkinglot and bus station, is planned to be a public park, and the west side of the harbor will be developed for housing and offices.

Langgata

The train

Norways longest walkingstreet and the mainstreet of Sandnes

Connecting Sandnes to Stavanger in the north and Bryne/Egersund in the south.

Ruten The main train and bus station in Sandnes Stavanger

Bryne

The new harbour front The shipping industry and the port authority is moving out and the local bank, offices and expensive appartments are moving in.

The site Located in the inner harbour, it is the heart of the city. The site has the possibility to turn the developement in Sandnes into something better, as the site is central and connected with the rest of the city.

THE SITE AND THE CITY

In 1861 the municipality defined the city of Sandnes and its borders and introduced the grid as the masterplan of the inner city center.In 1862 it was approved by the goverment.

RE-INTRODUCING THE GRID How to connect the site to the city?

How can we make a living city in the innerharbour wasteland?

How can we connect the old industrial “island� with the rest of the city, and create the living city center that Sandnes wants and needs?

How can we invite people to use the new city part?

And can we insure a diversed use?

CAN WE COPE WITH THE CHALLENGES OF THE NEAR FUTURE? While Sandnes is growing faster and faster, the municipality is stressing the building of an identity. They also want to enrich the city center and transform it into an attractive part of living in Sandnes.

The plans for a densification of the city centre will give more apartments and office space to the city center. The large amount of this developement is planned at the westside of the fjord. Here there will be developed larger scaled housing blocks, and office buildings. at the end of the harbor,furtest away from the city centre, there is planned a highrise hotel with a waterpark/bath.

The plan is providing housing and work for a quite homogeneous group of people with high level apartment buildings and workplaces for regional offices. The municipality plan will densify the city center on paper, but the identity of the city will not change much from what it is today.

At the same time there are not developed any plans for the large site at the heart of the harbor. How should we treat this area?

How can we use this higly attractive site in the best way?

Could we add some new qualities to the urban developement, qualities that could ensure Sandnes of really becoming a city center full of life?

How to open up the site to the city and the public ?

PUBLIC ACCESS Our site has never been open to the public. It used to be the inner parts of the fjord, but was filled, to create new land for the factories.

Since then the site has been completely occupied by private program.

We want ti open the site for the public, and work with this both horisontaly and verticaly.

How can students create a vibrant citypart ?

THE TOWERS OF INTELLIGENCE HOUSING

THE AUDITORIUM HOUSE THE BRIDGE

VĂ…GEN VGS

THE IDEA FACTORY

THE COMPASS

THE VIEW POINT

THE STUDENTS AS A CATALYST The urban city is benefiting from the student initiative in the cultural scene; holding public debates, lectures concerts etc. The city is also dependant on a cheap workforce that can work part-time. In the same way, the students are dependent on a part-time job to be able to pay their rent and living-expenses.

Today the combination of expensive housing and expensive public transport to the campus area, forces the students out of the city and the student culture is weakened.

To strenghten the student culture, we need to make space for the students in the citycenter. We need to invite the studentactivities to the city scene.

We want to add students and student activity to the center of Sandnes. we want to work with the students beeing the catalyst for our urban developement, and let this activities connect and strengthen the other aspects of the urban activities in Sandnes.

We are not going to add a conventional university,or faculty ,to the city center of Sandnes, but rather explore the possibilities for a new way of thinking a university, or a new way of organizing a higher education. We want to work within the urban situation of Sandnes where the students and their education is interlaced with the other actors of the city, so that these activities are connected, and strengthen by eachother.

The silo as an object of interest

GOING PUBLIC In Sandnes today, there are a lot of challanges to solve. With it’s encreasing population the city needs new infrastructure, fast. Housing, kindergardens and primary schools needs to be build imediately, and the citizens are very much engaged in how the polititians solves these issues. Still it seems that the desition makers don’t pubish their proposals before they are already made. We think that the envolvement of citizens from the start of the planning process could give a more personal and spesific view on the different issues, and they could contribute with a more unconventional aspect of city developement.

We are interested in the public eye on our ideas. We want get the people of Sandnes’ perception on the city, on our site and on our ideas. We wish to contribute to the current debate on the development of Sandnes.

What should the city be in 10-20-30 years from now? How should the city center be in 10-20-30 years from now?

What do we need, and how do we insure this? Our project could could be relevant as an alternative voice in the development of Sandnes, showing new and other values for our city’s future.

So far, the newspaper has narrowed our proposal into an idea on how to relate to the old buildings in the inner harbor, and especially what could happen with the old silo on our site. This building is a hot topic in Sandnes, where people either hate it or love it. We now know that we need to deal with this aspect of the site, on what to do with these old buildings.

Should we keep them or not, and why?

And if we should keep them, how should we do this?

layered keys

KEY ELEMENTS We want to develope the inner harbour of Sandnes into a vibrant, urban center. Our research will adress issues that we find missing in the city of Sandnes and it’s developement, as it is today. We want our proposal to show an alternative development, and to show and discover the real potential for Sandnes in the future.

To do so we are working with five vital element that we think is the KEY to ensure a good urban developement for Sandnes. variety We wish to turn an innerharbor wasteland into a urban, social centre in the city of Sandnes. To achieve this we need to insure a variety on the site. We need a variety of users from th young to the old. We need a variety of activities. We need the site activities to vary during the daytime and night, during the week, during the month and during the year.

Connection We wish to connect the innerharbour area of Sandnes to the rest of the city. To do this we need to connect with the existing structures in the city fabric. By re-introduce the grid from the old masterplan of 1860, we want to cut through the city, with walking streets connecting the city to the site and the site to the city.

Waterfront The waterfront of Sandnes has been separated from the public by the industry in the harbor. We think it is about time that Sandnes was reunited with the fjord, and to do so we need to strenghten the connection with the waterfront.

Nature Sandnes is a municipality with large areas of nature. These areas are in the outskirts of the city, but not really represented in the urban areas. We think that the nature should be represented not just in the rural parts of Sandnes, but also in the heart of the city. We need to re-introduce nature as a part of the citylife.

Students There are around 10 000 students in the region, and they are not well represented in the city enviroment. The students has a vital engagement in the citylife, as they often arrange more impulse and spontain activities, and uses the city in a varios way. We think that students are the missing link in the urban development of Sandnes, and the in region.

We want to introduce student activities, not just to the city centre, but also to the citizens, the commerce and the industri of Sandnes to create a new city centre. We think that all of these components of the city, could be strenghtened by simply mixing them and connecting them together.

How can we combine the old with the new ?

A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH To develop a city for the future, we need to have the future challenges in mind. Our ideas and proposals needs to stand the test of time, it needs to be sustainable. For us sustainability is more than calculating the CO2 budget. We want to work with a sustainable approach that is both an abstract, and a concrete concept.

To create a sustainable city, we need to ensure some basic values for good living. We need to ensure a flexible city condition and a good local climate. We need to improve the public health, the biodiversity, and the logistics of the city.

We need to deal with the increasing monoculture, not just in the region, but also in Norway, where the oil is becoming more and more our only source for development.

Another issue of a sustainable city, is how we re-use existing buildings.

How can we combine the old with the new? 90 % of the buildings of the future are already built, and the building industry is the biggest energy consumer in the world. Existing buildings are also a part of the collective memory of a city and can be a strong part of its identity. We think that exploring ways of rehabilitation and reuse of existing buildings are crucial for a sustainable development.

In a growing city, it is easy to forget the nature and the biodiversity. We think that it is important to ensure nature, not just in the rural parts of the city, but also in the inner city. We need to create green lungs in the urban tissue, and give recreational opportunities within the city center.

We need to ensure the public health and activate the citizens. Connecting the surrounding nature to the city invites people to use the city for leisure. As Sandnes is a city of rapid growth, now is the time to ensure this possibility, before it is too late.

The growth of the city is also expanding the suburban area even further from the city center. This separates the city centre from the citizens, and Sandnes is becoming a sleeping city. In addition it affects the nature and cultivated landscape. The region is one of the biggest producers of food in Norway and the farmland has been cultivated for thousands of years.

To ensure this historical farmland, and to avoid the sleeping city, we need to densify in the central areas of the city.

We want to work on a sustainable approach that looks at the city as a whole, and how all of the factors within the city could be improved. We want to look at the inner center of Sandnes, and how we can improve the city by improving this site.