view from main street Site B

Conceived as a virtual bridge, the building attempts to span across the street and into the park.

view from park Site B

the main dance studion focuses on the view of the mountains and lake accross.

Night Shot Site B

Projected performace celebrates the ongoing activities in the dance space.

Cutural Cafe Site B

this transparent and convertable space helps the public to connect to the view and the outdoor space.

Cultural Cafe Site A

Building as collage

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Home Grown
Major challenge for the addition and renovation of the cultural center in Husnes, Kvinnherad is one of program. Housing three historically separate institutions under the umbrella of the ministry of culture and information, this new campus of four buildings must become a whole.
A place to gather, learn and grow, this new collection of interior and exterior spaces focuses on integration of the separate parts of the program into a cohesive whole. We recognize this connection between the exterior and interior spaces as an important physical and cultural factor in the Norwegian aesthetic landscape.
The new building’s location and orientation reflects on the urban and environmental conditions pivotal in the formation of our response. To emphasize the urban presence and maximize sun exposure we oriented the building with a southwesterly exposure. The narrow building form and three stories height functions on multitude of ways. First, it allows us a more economically efficient building. In addition it affords a more energy efficient building with a great exposure to sun, a scares resource in winter season and abundantly available in the summer. It also gives a better presence to this cultural house in order to become a cultural billboard for the community and an inspirational environment intone with the biorhythms of the users.
Pragmatically, the addition must provide spaces for music, dance, painting and sculpture. In addition, it must supply spaces for interaction for staff and public alike. Conceptually, this addition must physically and spatially be woven in to the existing fabric, in order to provide an integrated and organized whole that is at the same time exciting and inspirational. By weaving indoor and outdoor, public and semipublic space, we consider the campus as the cultural forum for the community to gather and collectively grow.
In our approach, in collaboration with our clients, we first conduct a research to identify the important forces that must affect design of a successful cultural building. The undeniably beautiful natural environment of the site, its urban characteristics, and finally a challenging program and collection of existing building make this an exciting and complex project at the same time.

Architect

Art of Chiropractic
Pedestrian Bridge, winner of National Competition, 2002
Patrick's Cabaret
Light Falls, A Public Sculpture, Husnes, Norway
Kulturskulesenter Kvinnherad/ A Dance, Music and Visual Arts School