Munkehagen, Grønlikaia, Oslo
The design for a new floating city
Vandkunsten
This project is part of the transformation program through which Oslo has increasingly expanded toward the fjord in recent years, also with fairly high buildings and very close to the sea. Vandkunsten’s proposal develops from the idea of progressively accompanying the transition between land and water by creating spatial systems blurring from the largest scale into gradually more minute and intimate situations. To minimize the impact on the environmental system, the first choice was to avoid constructing artificial land, placing buildings directly on the water, designed to adapt to sea level rise and arranged along a boardwalk on stilts surrounding the lagoon’s inner body of water. The second choice was to differentiate the density of the new neighborhood by moving from the greater compactness determined by the taller buildings toward the urban fabric to its gradual reduction in the blocks on the water, identifying two settlement structures with different morphology.
