With its 130,000m², Oslofjord Convention Village is one of Northern Europe’s largest course and conference centres. In addition to meeting rooms, conference halls and multi-function rooms of all sizes, the complex also consists of hotels and rental apartments with 9,000 beds and a multi-purpose hall (with, among other things, a climbing wall, ice hockey rink and hall areas for all sports).
Project: OSLOFJORD CONVENTION VILLAGE
Studio Name: NielsTorp+
Design Team: Niels Torp, Torkel Hjorth, Benjamin Marks, Kristin Lunde, Cesar Leal
Area: 11.000 m2
Year: 2011-2022
Location: Sandefjord, Norway
Consultants: Conturo, Asplan Viak
Photography Credits: Dmitry Tkachenko
Designing a project of this scale with such a versatile program is a complex exercise. The goal has been to create an exciting and dynamic destination with a holistic, unifying approach og park that is inclusive for all activities and participants.
The main concept has been to create a park landscape that blends with the surrounding landscape, and with dynamic buildings that “rise” from the park and become part of it. This is achieved partly by allowing these buildings’ sedum roofs to go all the way down to the ground, and allowing access to these roofs through stairs and gangways in order to create continuity between the park at ground level and the green roofs.
All buildings feature balconies and circulation gangways on both fasades. This encourages people to meet each other, and thus generates a lively atmosphere on the fasades of the buildings as an extension of the social live on the park on the ground between the buildings.
The site is “car-free”, with an underground network of carparking facilities that connect every building at basement level and allow vehicular access the whole site, without disturbing the park-like environment on the surface.
Abstract about our practice
Since its inception in 1984, NIELSTORP+ Arkitekter has been one of Norway’s most productive architectural offices with significant projects nationally and internationally.
The office is today an extended partnership that works with future-oriented project management, including fully integrated BIM planning at all stages.
NIELSTORP+ Arkitekter have a long tradition of creating humane architecture. Their philosophy is simple – people are at the center of the design of both buildings and urban interventions. Buildings and fasades are broken down to a scale that makes people feel at home in, and feel a sense of belonging to, their surroundings.
NIELSTORP+ Arkitekter design urban spaces that facilitate and encourage people meeting each other. An arena for human interaction can be both large and small and therefore this principle applies regardless of a project’s size.
The goal is to create an architecture that gives back to its surroundings. This is how architecture is created with a quality that stands the test of time.
