Name: Eirik Stokke and Espen Robstad Heggertveit
Disciplines: Architecture, urban and regional planning, urban development, landscape architecture, and urban spaces
Education: Master’s in Architecture, Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)
Last man out is a wuss!
In connection with the reopening of the River Alna as part of the city's contingency against flooding, we collaborated with NVE (Norwegian Water Sources and Energy Directorate), PBE (Agency for Planning and Building Services in Oslo), and other specialist agencies in order to give the river a new life. Although Oslo Municipality is planning a variety of projects, we proposed a more comprehensive strategy which will embrace the entire area. We did this by establishing 32 new bathing areas throughout Groruddalen utilising the new river course. We allowed our imaginations free rein.
Panel remarks
This project is a tribute to how good design and innovative thinking can add value to something that is essentially a boring public project, i.e. flood protection, for what could be better than using the subject of bathing to solve expensive and difficult problems?
In an exceptionally well-researched application, they show how the reopened Alna River could become a resource for everyone living along its stretch, in the form of bathing and meeting places. For example, a wonderful hot sauna overlooking the shadowy Svartdalen, a Turkish bath in Kværnerbyen, or a mineral spa at Kalbakken, to name just some of the 32 suggestions in the plan.
This is a project we really hope will be realised, for we cannot see this as being anything other than a win-win project for the municipality: they save money on flood recovery work and at the same time give something positive to the voters... excuse me: the residents.