NARVIK

SCALES — S - Urban architecture LOCATION — Technical Quarter POPULATION — 18,800 inhab. STRATEGIC SITE — 7.9 ha / PROJECT SITE — 1.4 ha SITE PROPOSED BY — Municipality of Narvik and Narvikgården AS OWNER OF THE SITE — Narvikgården AS POST-COMPETITION PHASE — Planning Commission

Eirik Djupvik — Project Manager, Narvikgaarden AS

1. WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE SITE MUTATION? The main goal is to create a vibrant city centre in Narvik. The overall assignment is to put into place a vision for Technical Quarter as a young urban arena that contributes to the development of Narvik. The Technical Quarter is going to be a place where people can live, socialize and produce. An important task for the competitors is to develop strategies for reusing and making proposals for new content and architecture at the site.

2. HOW CAN THE SITE BE INTEGRATED IN THE ISSUES OF PRODUCTIVE CITIES? HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THE PRODUCTIVITY ISSUE? The participants are asked to explore how several functions can be integrated at the project site. For instance, co-working spaces for companies; workshops for small-scale industry related to testing technology and making prototypes; student housing for both long and short term rentals; flexible event venue that can host conferences, meetings, concerts and exhibitions; social arenas, or commercial programs that encourage social meetings. And, specifically “Teknorama” - a teaching centre for physics and technology, this is an existing offer for kids and youths in Narvik that wants to expand.

3. HAVE YOU ALREADY DEFINED A SPECIFIC PROCESS FOR THE URBAN AND/OR ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE AFTER EUROPAN? The further work will consist of several parallel processes: 1. Development and processing of the winning proposal (including an analysis of existing buildings to be transformed or not) 2. Preparation of a detailed zoning plan 3. Involvement of investors and partners In the work on the development and processing of the winning proposal, we will first make a qualitative analysis of existing buildings to look at how, and if, they can be rehabilitated and transformed into buildings adapted to the new features they should contain. This work, as well as, input from Narvikgaarden, partners, investors and input from starting of the zoning plan will form the basis for the development and processing of the winning proposal. The final proposal will be divided into phases with a program for a step-by-step development.

On Reflection

AUTHOR(S) — Martin Berg (SE), Matilda Schuman (SE), Architects

NARVIK (NO) — WINNER

CONTACT — Schuman Berg Arkitektkontor, Bandhagen (SE) T. +46706762511, info@schumanberg.se, www.schumanberg.se

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — ”On Reflection” is a rich and complex architectural micro-cosmos in the centre of Narvik. Existing buildings on the site are kept and sometimes adapted to new usage while new additions are carefully inserted to improve the social and physical context they are a part of. A new building stands next to the picturesque OT-gården, an industrial workshop building is converted into a scientific museum and the old gates, used for fire trucks, will remain to be manoeuvred by students to open up the co-working spaces to the outside. It’s a creative campus with the greatest impact for the individual inhabitant, but also for Narvik as a whole.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — The project clearly chooses a step-bystep strategy. The main reason for this decision is that the winners understand the existing buildings as a kind of helpful structural framework, which does not need much transformation in order to create two different new public spaces for the city. The team is making convincing propositions for each of the existing buildings and are carefully adding two corresponding buildings that form a new gate to the park. And they apply references from existing conversions that correspond very well with the requirements of the city of Narvik for a constantly evolving mix of uses.

The Ecology of Making

AUTHOR(S) — Dominique Hauderowicz (DK), Kristian Ly Serena (DK), Architects CONTACT — Studio Fountainhead, Copenhagen (DK) T. +45 60802087, info@studiofountainhead.dk www.studiofountainhead.dk

NARVIK (NO) — RUNNER-UP

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — ‘The Ecology of Making” does not propose a city of buildings, but a city of spaces for the cultures of making. Making does not simply stop when you leave an office. Making begins in the street. It flowers in conversation and observation. A productive city is a place that sets one free to seek for thriving moments. The city must give space and opportunity for this search. The project reads the future technical district as a living organism of different people and programmes. Weaving the project site into the adjacent Bromsgård Park, the project does not propose clear boundaries between leisure and work, nor between learning and researching. In contrast, it offers generous and spacious opportunities for playful, creative lifestyles, that can nourish the kinds of production needed in the future.

JURY POINT OF VIEW — The project proposes a holistic and gradual strategy for transforming Narvik’s Technical Quarter into a productive area for all, arguing that production means more than just an economic activity. It builds from a sensitive reading of Narvik’s urban form, its past development and its future trajectory, to inform a highly contextual urban strategy that expands beyond the boundary of the site. The team proposes a new vibrant public space that links together the other programmatic elements, and aims at countering what they describe as the Shopping Centre Urbanism of Narvik.

AUTHOR(S) — Márton Tövissi (RO), Mihai Bușe (FR), Boris Girin (FR), Architects; Emőke Forró (RO), Interior architect; Etienne Haller (UK), Elinor Scarth (UK), Landscape architects CONTACT — A-PLATZ + MEMO + INLANDSIS info@a-platz.com, www.a-platz.com, www.memo-architecture.com, www.inlandsis.space

TEAM POINT OF VIEW — The site of the future “Technical Quarter” lacks a clear urban definition, we detect a backyard effect despite its central position within the city. Different buildings were erected on the site and despite the obsolete image of some of them, they have tectonic qualities and they are starting to define a valuable three square-courtyard morphology. We propose to redefine and complete the urban fabric by upgrading all the valuable existing buildings and by adding new ones, to create diversity and structure. By setting up smaller entities in terms of public space and architectural types, we create living areas of activity that are clearly identified at the scale of the cityscape. In this way a sense of density, combined with a sense of community, can become a possibility.