Way out West – Norway's wild North West Atlantic coast architectural and building scene

Trondheim, mid-way up Norway’s North West coast, is home to a dynamic self-starting architectural and building scene. Less well known than capital Oslo, Trondheim has seen a wave of young practices up for adventure and experiment. Here we profile many of these; TYIN Tegnestue, Rever og Drage, Rallar and Nøysom arkitekter, all ardent spirits of Trondheim’s new generational wave.

Trondheim is also the first focus in our Unstructured Cities series. We look at and explore the source of this adventure, NTNU’s Live Projects agenda and the alt.culture experimental eco-district – Svartlamon. Plus the city’s best known studio Pir II, low tech house and home experiments, other ongoing research and Hans Skotte on the biannual Røros Seminar.

Way out West also heads north and south, tracking down transplanted Finn, Sami Rintala to his high Norwegian Bodø hideout, and the atmospheric Fleinvær island music retreat at the edge of the Arctic. And much further south, interviewing the country’s pre-eminent traditional boat builder Jan Godal, Rever og Drage’s Martin Beverfjord chewing over the connection with his home county, More og Romsdal. Plus the roads that connect; the National Tourist Routes including Jensen & Skodvin, Knut Wold and Peter Zumthor.

Unstructured Cities - Trondheim

Ardent Spirits – Trondheim's youthful new wave

After Asia – TYIN come home - by Hans Skotte

Time for Place and People – Rallar Arkitekter's Elliv Andreas Myren Ribe on their journey so far

Insights from NTNU Live Studio – guest research from Steffen Wellinger, Elenar Archipovaite and Hans Skotte

Svartlamon - Alternative culture meets experimental timber architecture - Oliver Lowenstein

Self build Svartlamon style - Nøysom arkitekter

Brendeland & Kristoffersen's Svartlomoen game-changer, plus what happened next

Further - Related info on Trondheim, and its architecture, building and sustainability cultures

Main street, off main street and Trondheim's wider reach

Midsize – PIR II: Trondheim's best-known studio – By Alice Lødemel Sandberg

Behind the white wall - August Schmidt's Shingle House

Nordic Rhythms: Nina Haarsaker on her and her partner, Sevrin Gjerde's, Årtidshus

Staveneblokka – a timber brick for the Future - by Anne-Sigrid Norby

Trondheim Built - NTNU and the regional sustainable building and research culture - by Oliver Lowenstein

The Røros Seminar: a brief history – by Hans Skotte

Fourth Door Further – Related Fourth Door and other article features

North by North West: Wild Atlantic Building Ways

Sami Rintala - North of the World– by Oliver Lowenstein

An evening redness – Rever og Drage by - Martin Beverfjord

Living and working on the High Norwegian Coast Line - by Andrew Devine

Supertraditional – Jan Godal, Norway’s pre-eminent timber and boat builder talks to Martin Beverfjord

Trondheim’s vernacular waterfront warehouse tradition - by Eileen Garmann Johnsen

Norway's National Tourist Routes at twenty. Running out of road or a new cycle beginning?

Knut Wold – Sculptor of the National Tourist Routes – by Oliver Lowenstein

Contributors

Elenar Archipovaite is an assistant professor in NTNU’s department of Architecture and Planning

Martin Beverfjord is one of the founding partners of Rever og Drage Architects. While at NTNU he worked on the

Andrew Devine is an Australian architect with a passion for carpentry, and one time student of Sami Rintala, who spent two years living and working on Fleinvær to complete the Fordypningsrommet Fleinvær project before returning to his home town, Melbourne.

Nina Katrine Haarsaker - Nina teaches in the Department of Architectural Design, Form and Colour Studies within NTNU as an assistant professor. With her partner Sevrin Gjerde, Haarsaker e set up TiPi Architects to work on and complete their Aarstidshus.

This Noysom Arkitektur piece was written by Haakan Haanes who completed a joint diploma with Trygve Ohren in 2015 on the Svartlamoen self build project, before co-founding Noysom with Ohren and Cathrine Johansen Rønningen

Eileen Garmann Johnsen has taught as an Associate Professor in NTNU’s Architecture and Technology department since the 1990’s. Garmann Johnsen has a special interest in craft and hand-making skills, including leading a group of Trondheim region willow basket makers.

Alice Lødemel Sandberg, is a fourth year architecture student at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and former editor of the student magazineTidsskriftet A.

Elliv Andreas Myren Ribe is a member of Rallar Arkitektur and graduate of NTNU architecture department.

Anne-Sigrid Norby is a sustainability researcher in the built environment at the multidisciplinary research consultancy Asplan Viak. She was a researcher in Lifecycle design within NTNU’s Department of Energy and Environment.

August Schmidt is an expatriate Austrian, who moved to Trondheim in 1996 after studies and working in practices in Graz and Stuttgart. He founded Arkitekt August Schmidt AS in 2005 and Studio Sjellsand in 2012.

Hans Narve Skotte is Professor Emeritus in the department of Architecture and Planning. His work on urban planning and architecture in the developing world has been instrumental in propelling Trondheim’s current generation of architects into exploring these broader social fields.

Steffen Wellinger - a German born, Trondheim resident architect, Wellinger is responsible for mentoring the student initiated Live Projects and coordinating NTNU’a Live Studio, which in 2015 received the Norwegian Education Award and the NTNU Education Award.

All other articles are by Oliver Lowenstein from Fourth Door

This Unstructured Extra wouldn’t have been possible without time, contributions and help of a wide number of people.

I’d particularly like to thank Martin Beverfjord, Tygve Ohren, Sami Rintala, Hans Skotte and August Schmidt for all their help and time with this edition of Unstructured Extra

Fourth Door would also like to thank the London Norwegian Embassy for funding support for the web-edition, and for travel and accommodation support for two research visits to Norway during 2016