Barcode Project (Oslo)
Encyclopedia
The Barcode Project is a section of the Bjørvika
portion of the Fjord City
redevelopment on former dock and industrial land in central Oslo
. It consists of a row of new high-rise buildings, due to be completed in 2014, which will house 10,000 offices and some 500 apartments. The developer is marketing the project as "The Opera Quarter." There has been intense public debate about the height and shape of the buildings.
(government property management organization), Linstow Eiendom (privately owned) and ROM Eiendom AS
(the Norwegian State Railways' property management arm).
, where the new Oslo Opera House
has already been built.
. The general plan was based on an international competition to plan the new Bjørvika, which was won by Dark Architects (of Oslo), a-lab, and MVRDV (of Rotterdam
).
The general plan specified five high-rise buildings, the tallest in area B11, closest to the Station Common (a new public square and bridge giving access to Central Station), rising to 100 m above sea level ("contour 100") and having approximately 24 floors. The other towers were specified to be lower in height: 70 m in area B13, 78 m in B10, and 81 m in B12. The buildings were described as a geometric system of volumes based on penetrating strips of empty space. The building plan for the Barcode buildings was approved by the city in March 2008 with few changes from the 2006 proposal.
The Barcode has been planned as a row of different buildings with views between them. The unbuilt spaces between the buildings are to be at least 12 m wide. Several of the buildings will have fewer floors facing the fjord than the railway. The buildings are long and narrow (for example, DnB building B is 21 m wide and 105 long). The stated purpose of choosing such dissimilar building forms is to avoid a massive wall between the fjord and the buildings behind the Barcode, and that the Barcode principle, with segmented construction, will contribute to openness, light penetration, and transparency in the built-up area. The buildings will have a shared basement, entered from Trelastgata.
The Barcode buildings are, from west to east:
Approximately 145,000 sq. m. of work spaces will be built in the Barcode (of approximately 410,000 in Bjørvika as a whole). As of May 2010, the number of apartments in the Barcode is unclear, but possibly around 450. The first apartments (in the KLP Building) were occupied in May 2010.
A petition campaign in opposition to the building of the high-rises received over 30,000 signatures in 2007, and according to a survey by Aftenposten
in December of the same year, 71% of the population of Oslo opposed the project.
has a selection on exhibit.
Bjørvika
Bjørvika is a neighborhood in the Sentrum borough of Oslo, Norway. The area is an inlet in the inner Oslofjord, situated between Gamlebyen and Akersness. It serves as an outlet for the river Akerselva. Since the 2000s, it has been undergoing urban redevelopment, being transformed from a container...
portion of the Fjord City
Fjord City
The Fjord City is a urban renewal project for the waterfront part of the center of Oslo, Norway. The first redevelopment was at Aker Brygge during the 1980s. Bjørvika and Tjuvholmen followed up during the 2000s, while the remaining parts of the Port of Oslo will be developed in the 2010s. The port...
redevelopment on former dock and industrial land in central Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
. It consists of a row of new high-rise buildings, due to be completed in 2014, which will house 10,000 offices and some 500 apartments. The developer is marketing the project as "The Opera Quarter." There has been intense public debate about the height and shape of the buildings.
Land ownership and responsibility for development
Oslo S Utvikling AS (abbreviated OSU) is responsible for the development of the Barcode. OSU is a subsidiary of Entra Eiendom ASEntra Eiendom
Entra Eiendom AS is a Norwegian government enterprise owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry. The company manages 1,2 million m² of real estate, primarily in Norway's seven largest cities....
(government property management organization), Linstow Eiendom (privately owned) and ROM Eiendom AS
ROM Eiendom
Rom Eiendom is a subsidiary of the Norwegian State Railways responsible for managing the commercial sections of the companies real estate. With headquarters in Oslo, the company manages . The vast majority of this is in or in connection with railway stations...
(the Norwegian State Railways' property management arm).
Location
The Barcode buildings are between Dronning Eufemias gate (Queen Eufemia's Street), which will be the main east-west thoroughfare in the Bjørvika neighborhood and is a stretch of what is currently Bispegata, and Trelastgata (Timber Street, a new street that during planning was also called Sporgata, Track Street), which will run alongside the rail lines to Oslo Central Station on the northern edge of the development. A line of apartment buildings will be between Dronning Eufemias gate and the OslofjordOslofjord
The Oslofjord is a bay in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the Torbjørnskjær and Færder lighthouses and down to Langesund in the south to Oslo in the north....
, where the new Oslo Opera House
Oslo Opera House
The Oslo Opera House is the home of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway. The building is situated in the Bjørvika neighborhood of central Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. It is operated by Statsbygg, the government agency which manages property for...
has already been built.
Planning and description
The Barcode buildings occupy areas B10 through B13 of the general plan for the Bjørvik neighborhood that was adopted by the Oslo City Council in 2003—in the Bispevika section, east of the mouth of the Akerselva RiverAkerselva
Akerselva, or Akerselven, is a river which flows through Oslo. It starts at Maridalsvannet in Oslomarka, and follows the urban areas Nordre Aker, Sagene, Grünerløkka, Oslo centre and Grønland, whereby it finally ends at Paulsenkaien and Oset in Bjørvika. The river is considered to be a part of the...
. The general plan was based on an international competition to plan the new Bjørvika, which was won by Dark Architects (of Oslo), a-lab, and MVRDV (of Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
).
The general plan specified five high-rise buildings, the tallest in area B11, closest to the Station Common (a new public square and bridge giving access to Central Station), rising to 100 m above sea level ("contour 100") and having approximately 24 floors. The other towers were specified to be lower in height: 70 m in area B13, 78 m in B10, and 81 m in B12. The buildings were described as a geometric system of volumes based on penetrating strips of empty space. The building plan for the Barcode buildings was approved by the city in March 2008 with few changes from the 2006 proposal.
The Barcode has been planned as a row of different buildings with views between them. The unbuilt spaces between the buildings are to be at least 12 m wide. Several of the buildings will have fewer floors facing the fjord than the railway. The buildings are long and narrow (for example, DnB building B is 21 m wide and 105 long). The stated purpose of choosing such dissimilar building forms is to avoid a massive wall between the fjord and the buildings behind the Barcode, and that the Barcode principle, with segmented construction, will contribute to openness, light penetration, and transparency in the built-up area. The buildings will have a shared basement, entered from Trelastgata.
The Barcode buildings are, from west to east:
- PriceWaterhouseCoopersPricewaterhouseCoopersPricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....
(PWC) Building. 18 floors. Architects: a-lab. 12 floors. A glass structure of simple form with a central entrance five storeys high affording views through the building, and 3-storey voids within the building visible from the exterior. The first Barcode building to be completed. In April 2008 a-lab won the "Europe 40 under 40" prize in part on the basis of this design. - Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP) Building. 2 overlapping segments in contrasting materials and of differing shapes separated by a column of glass, varying between 8 and 18 floors. 31,700 sq. m. Architects: Solheim & Jacobsen (SJ). The western tower will contain 54 luxury apartments and the eastern the KLP offices. The building will have 5 roof surfaces, 3 of which will be gardens, the other two passive planting.
- Deloitte Building. 16,950 sq. m. Architects: Snøhetta. This building will be between the KLP Building and the Station Common and will provide services associated with the station, probably including restaurants, on its lowest floors. It will be tall and narrow and the surface realized half in glass, half in dense elements. Its form was inspired by a calving glacier and it was initially referred to as "the Glacier."
- VismaVismaVisma is a supplier of business software, outsourcing services, commerce solutions, retail IT solutions, and IT related development and consultancy. Visma has 240 000 customers in Northern Europe...
Building. Three office towers joined by two columnar glass atria, varying between 12 and 17 floors. 20,800 sq. m. Architects: Dark. The cladding is to make it hard to read the number of floors from the exterior, a so-called "pixel facade." - DnB NORDnB NORDNB ASA is Norway's largest financial services group with total combined assets of more than NOK 2.0 trillion and a market capitalisation NOK 102 billion as per December the 31st. The Group includes brands such as DNB, Vital, Nordlandsbanken, Cresco, Postbanken, DnB NORD and Carlson...
Building. Architects: MVRDV. Three buildings linked by a below-ground "street" area, with restaurants and other shared areas on the first and second floors. Chief architect: a-lab. Building A: 37,000 sq. m., architect: MVRDV. The center building and the new headquarters of the financial company. Offices will be grouped around voids and the exterior cladding will be 6-meter square "pixels." Building B: 22,500 sq. m. The eastern building, on the longest site, will be set back behind a plaza on Dronning Eufemias gate and have offices on the lower floors, apartments with terraces on the upper floors. Building C: 14 floors, 13,000 sq. m. The western DnB NOR tower will be stepped, with a restaurant, bar, and terrace on the top floor accessible from Dronning Eufemias gate. The building will be clad in glass reflective panels tilted at slightly differing angles to reflect different fractions of the surrounding scenery. To open 2012.
Approximately 145,000 sq. m. of work spaces will be built in the Barcode (of approximately 410,000 in Bjørvika as a whole). As of May 2010, the number of apartments in the Barcode is unclear, but possibly around 450. The first apartments (in the KLP Building) were occupied in May 2010.
Public debate
Some are enthusiastic about the fresh architecture, the "champagne apartments," and the unmatched opportunity to reshape the urban landscape and relieve pressure on a rapidly growing city without diminishing existing green space. However, there has been widespread criticism of the heights and designs of the Barcode buildings, both from architects and from citizens of Oslo. The Barcode has been described as a barrier between the fjord and the rest of the city that will destroy Oslo's character as an open, low-rise city with a lot of green space and cast a permanent shadow on adjacent neighborhoods for the benefit of a rich few. The architecture has been described as chaotic, as part of a trend of so-called "message buildings," which within a few years will be seen as having disfigured the city.A petition campaign in opposition to the building of the high-rises received over 30,000 signatures in 2007, and according to a survey by Aftenposten
Aftenposten
Aftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
in December of the same year, 71% of the population of Oslo opposed the project.
Archeological discovery
During work on the Barcode project, the remains of at least nine wrecked ships were uncovered, up to 18 m long and provisionally dated to the first half of the 16th century. This is the largest collection of historical shipwrecks found in Norway. The Barcode site, like the rest of the Bjørvika neighborhood, was underwater until the mid-19th century. Approximately 1,100 clay pipes, Chinese porcelain, and other artefacts were also found. The Norwegian Maritime MuseumNorwegian Maritime Museum
The Norwegian Maritime Museum , previously known as the Norsk Sjøfartsmuseum, founded in 1914, is located at Bygdøynesveien on the Bygdøy peninsula, on the western side of Oslo, Norway....
has a selection on exhibit.
Government and planning
- Bjørvika, Oslo city government page with artists' renderings of completed buildings and cityscape
- Reguleringsbestemmelser for Bjørvika felt B10.1 – B13 og B22 gnr. 234, bnr. 6 og 16, del av reguleringsplan S-0499 Oslo city government rules and specifications for Barcode and neighboring areas, 2008
- Byrådet anbefaler ”Barcode”-utbygging i Bjørvika, samt plan for utforming av Stasjonsallmenningen Oslo city government press release on plans for Barcode and Station Common, July 19, 2007
- Bjørvika Utvikling AS
- HAV Eiendom AS
- ROM Eiendom AS
Architects
Public debate
- "Barcode-blokkene i Bjørvika blir ikke mindre," interview with then city manager for development Merete Agerbak-JensenMerete Agerbak-JensenMerete Agerbak-Jensen is a Norwegian politician for the Conservative Party.She was born in Oslo, and was educated at the Norwegian Journalist College in 1994 and at the University of Oslo. She worked as a journalist in Akers Avis from 1987 to 1990 and Verdens Gang from 1995 to 1997...
, AftenpostenAftenpostenAftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
, July 23, 2007 - Ingrid Vedeler Brekkhus, "Bjørvikas andre fasade," MorgenbladetMorgenbladetMorgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly newspaper. It was founded in 1819 by the book printer Niels Wulfsberg, and was the country's first daily newspaper. For a long time, it was also the country's biggest newspaper. It was closed down by the German Wehrmacht during World War II...
April 24, 2009