SMAQ wins the Europan 9 competition for a site located in Oslo, Norway. The project “Culmulus” takes on the challenge of diversifying social structure along with the sustainability imperative. “Cumulus” is an urban strategy that conceives public spaces as related to the environmental dynamics of northern living. The proposal for a mixed-used development (re)binds the different social spheres, programmes and scales of an existing 70ties development and a new urban centre through a concept of water cycling and seasonal expansion and contraction.
An important local environmental force – rain – collected on roofs and facades of the inserted dwelling towers is stored to reflect light and skies into the apartments; it is partially used in communal laundries and finally released at a social event in nearing winter to flood the public in-between spaces of the development: Congealing it expands the central indoor ice skating ring into an open air skating surface. While this temporal icy plane serves encounters of existing as well as incoming communities, spring will drain the waters to bordering allotment ecologies.
Nothing new? Yet, “Cumulus” promotes a synthetic approach to environmental flows and urban inhabitation enhancing each other and triggering an architectural typology of its own.
Project:
Cumulus
For more information please visit:
Europan Norway