Barcode

A-lab had the executive, coordinating role for Barcode's masterplan, in collaboration with Dutch MRDV and Norwegian Dark. With a plot area of 300 000 m2, this was the largest urban development project in Norway at the time. A new, innovative form of city planning, never before practiced in Norway, was developed - inspired by a Dutch, experimental style.

History

Hartmann has been working with Bjørvika for 20 years in The Agency for Planning and Building Services in the City of Oslo. He draws the historic lines to the fire that ravaged the capital in 1624. At that time, the residential buildings were centered on the eastside of the fjord, in what is now Gamlebyen. The wooden houses could not withstand the deceitful flames, and most of them burned to the ground. At the time, Norway was governed by Denmark, and King Christian IV followed his military council’s advice to build a new city on the west side, within the perimeter of the Akershus fortress, which was built under King Håkon V Magnusson in 1299. A renaissance style urban plan with brick buildings placed along a straight street grid – later named Kvadraturen – was in Gamlebyen’s place.

The city did not expand to the east and into Gamlebyen until the first railroad tracks out of Oslo were completed in 1854. As the railroad system and traffic grew, Oslo’s main railroad station Oslo Central Station built new tracks. On the south side of the tracks, a large freight terminal was built around World War 1. This lot was later the foundation for the development of Barcode, and is the historic basis for Norges Statsbaner NSB’s (now Bane Nor’s) ownership in real estate company Eiendomsselskapet Oslo S Utvikling (OSU), which is co-owned by Entra ASA and Linstow AS. OSU was established in 2001 to manage 380,000 m2 of the 900,000 m2 lot in Bjørvika.

Fjord development — A transportation issue

For several decades, the seafront was not accessible neither as a residential nor as a recreational area for Oslo’s citizens. I 1988, the city council decided to develop a plan for the transformation of the harbor area, and twelve years later, in 2002, Project Fjordbyen was passed.

At the time, Bjørvika was divided into harbor lots and NSB lots, and Oslo Central Station had large areas allocated to freight handling. The chosen site for the opera house bordered a gigantic interchange, Bispelokket, which tied a conglomerate of routes together. When the opera house was built in 2002, studies showed that 100,000 cars passed through this interchange daily. The success of the opera house accelerated the planning of an alternative E-road route through the city.

Several concept studies for a new road route were made, and the result was an engineering-wise highly advanced immersed tube. This project included a new main route through Bjørvika named Dronning Eufemias Gate, after Euphemia of Rügen, who was the queen of Norway from 1200 to 1312. The grounds under the street consisted of old seabed and filler, which meant it had to be built on piles resting on bedrock 50 meters below – in itself a costly project.

Barcode — Rules of creativity

When the transportation issue was settled, the Barcode lot was the easiest next step after the opera house. The 30,000 m2 large lot was on the south side of the railroad tracks and was not in conflict with the road network, current or planned. A-lab won the competition for the master plan for Barcode in the spring of 2003, in partnership with Dutch MRDV and Norwegian architects DARK.

The tree companies wanted to divide Barcode into parallel strips of land between two streets that would either be developed or remain open spaces. This design had historic parallels in Norway, for instance in the medieval buildings of Bryggen in Bergen.

The result was one and a half years of political tug of war, before the city council, led by conservatives Høyre, got left wing party SV’s votes to approve the local plan. New requirements were made, for instance the buildings had to be modified to allow sightlines from the historic neighborhood of Grünerløkka to the green Ekebergåsen. Barcode was adopted with an area loss of 10,000 m2. The result was more space between the buildings, which in turn gave way for even more creative designs. Hartmann think Barcode probably benefitted from that.