Oslo developement thread

[NorthStar77]

/\ it was built in the yappy late 80'ies/early 90'ies. It is still uncertain, however, how the rules for highrises will be in the future. The planning authorities are pro highrises in certain areas, while a majority of the politicians is against highrises, exept for in a few areas. Some politicians was at a trip to Marseilles(of all places) to study highrises some weeks ago. And they were in Rotterdam a few months ago. It remains to see what will be the final desition.

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News on public transport:
Privates want to build new highway

The two most trafficated roads in Norway, will probably not recieve a single krone from the state for upgrades in the period 2006-2015. People living in the western suburbs of Bærum and Asker are now fed up of waiting for a new highway on E-18 westwards from Oslo, wich is one of northern Europes most trafficated roads(around 100.000 cars per day). It is heavy congestion here every day, and the traffick in the Oslo area is expected to increase by 30% until 2025. So they want to build their own highway, going in a tunnel under the existing highway. The price on this project will be 10,5 billion kr(1.3 billion euro). With a toll-station charging 10 kr for each car, it will take 19 years to pay for the road. If the necesary aprovals are made, the construction can start in 2007, and be finished in 2011-2012. The "road authorities" are postive to a cooperation with the group, but are sceptical if yet another toll-station in the Oslo area is smart.

[Þróndeimr]

Originally Posted by NorthStar77

Some politicians was at a trip to Marseilles(of all places) to study highrises some weeks ago.

ridiculous!

[NorthStar77]

/\Indeed!!

What is even more rediculous, is that these politicians didn't have ANY architects, urbanist, or any proffessionals AT ALL with them on their trip! I think that says something about the "high" standards of some of our politicians. I bet they had quite a fun time down there, with lots of fine dinners and some wild parties....

[Þróndeimr]

Oslo City to get Larger!

Oslo City is already the largest shopping mall in Oslo with a turnover on 1.3 billion NOK, but this is not enough. A new floor with 3 300sqm of retail area will be added. The planns has been developed for three years, but the construction has finally started.


The new entrance to Oslo City. It will contain a big screen for (short?) movies.




A new inside look.

[NorthStar77]

Yeah, looks okay This is a good news, for the location of this centre is as central as it gets!! All public transport is within two minutes walk, and Jernbanetorget metro-station is in the basement even.

It may be the biggest in Oslo, but just outside the city borders, there are some large shopping centres, like Strømmen Storsenter, Sandvika Storsenter + a few more. The screen mentioned is for showing special events in the centre etc. Further news about the extension: H&M will extend their shop with one floor, so that it alone will cover 4 floors, the biggest in Norway by far(Now they are on 3 floors but don't even have a mens department, need to cross the street for that). The best news with this is that Clas Ohlson will move in there, nice! Now I can also have fun when I am out shopping with my girlfriend

Aftenposten also wrote about this today:http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle964251.ece

[Þróndeimr]

Originally Posted by NorthStar77

It may be the biggest in Oslo, but just outside the city borders, there are some large shopping centres, like Strømmen Storsenter, Sandvika Storsenter + a few more. The screen mentioned is for showing special events in the centre etc. Further news about the extension: H&M will extend their shop with one floor, so that it alone will cover 4 floors, the biggest in Norway by far(Now they are on 3 floors but don't even have a mens department, need to cross the street for that). The best news with this is that Clas Ohlson will move in there, nice! Now I can also have fun when I am out shopping with my girlfriend

Aftenposten also wrote about this today:http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle964251.ece

Yea, Oslo actually need a larger shopping center, both Strømmen and Sandvika Storsenter is larger than Oslo City. Btw, where is Clas Ohlson nowdays?

[NorthStar77]

Originally Posted by Christian

Yea, Oslo actually need a larger shopping center, both Strømmen and Sandvika Storsenter is larger than Oslo City. Btw, where is Clas Ohlson nowdays?

Clas Ohlson is in Torggata, between Youngstorget and Oslo domkirke, right across the street from Eldorado cinema-complex, if you know where that is. So it's only a 5 minutes walk from Oslo City now. They are at Sandvika Storsenter too.

About Oslo City not beeing large enough. Right across the street lies Byporten and Oslo Shopping(inside Oslo S), and on the other side lies Gunerius. The combined turnover of these are 2.7 billion kroner (324 million euro). But you are right, it is still not "large enough", because the suburban shoppingcentres seems to have an edge on what to offer their customers, and they have a bigger increase in turnover than the ones downtown. Another reason why they need to expand is to plan for the future. This area will become even more central, when Bjørvika is developed, and the district of Gamlebyen will near double its population. Already there are soooo many people here shopping in the weekends, it is really too crowded.

But this is not the only downtown shoppingcentre that is expanding. The shoppingcentre at Aker Brygge doubled its size last year, and Sten&Strøm(the first shoppingcentre in Norway, from the 60'ies I believe) are about to do some major upgrades.

I just discovered that Oslo City is not the biggest in Oslo, only the biggest in downtown. Alna center, and CC vest is bigger, and growing faster than Oslo City, unfortunately. There are also countless of local shoppingcentres in the various "commieblock towns", or drabantbyene in Oslo, like Tveita, Oppsal, Manglerud, Stovner, Bryn etc. Many of them have extended recently, and Stovner has grown so much that it has become one of the biggest in the country, with a turnover of 1 billion kr.

[NorthStar77]

Work on new Ring 3 between Ulven and Sinsen started today


This is a huge infrastructure project, with the most important beeing the 1,2 km 6 lane tunnel, Lørentunnellen, between Sinsen and Økern. Økern is probably the area in the city with most traffic, as 3 major roads meet there, in a rather chaotic way. These are Ring 3 (63 000 cars pr. day (1998)), Østre Aker vei (37 000 cars pr. day (1998)) and Økernveien (20 000 cars pr. day (1998)). There has been registered 124 traffic-accidents in this area in the period 1998-2001. This project will make sure of better flow in the traffic, better safety, and better conditions for the local enviroment.

In this project is also a 320 meter long 2-lane tunnel, Økerntunnellen, a new road between Ulvensplitten og Økernveien, and a new mainroute for bicycling. The entire project has a budget on 1,6 billion kr(200 million euros), and will not be finished until 2010, because of the complicated task of making this in a heavy trafficated area.





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Haslekollen
Hasle - will be near Lørenbyen in the future

Skanska is planning to build 600 apartments at Hasle. The only render I found:


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Lysaker brygge
Lysaker

At the border between Oslo and the western suburb of Bærum, 354 apartments is beeing built in a quite maritime setting. In total 9 buildings is beeing built, on 5-6 floors. The 3 first was finished last year, while the 3 last ones will be finished by the end of this year. There will also be around 30.000 sqm of office and retail.

This project won the state's price for good construction for 2004, quoting the jury:
"I året som kommer kan den videre utbyggingen på dette tidligere området for Finas oljetanker fungere som en læreprosess for alle som er opptatt av sammenhenger mellom bolig- og byutvikling. Den fem til seks etasjers høye boligbebyggelsen bryter med den ensidige kontorutnyttelsen langs Lysakerselvas munning og sjøsiden ved Oslo-fjorden og tilbyr, i tillegg til boliger, nye attraktive fellesarealer for hele området. Prosjektet åpner opp for en sammenhengende gang- og sykkellinje langs fjorden, helt inn til Oslo sentrum.


Lysaker Brygge er blitt et prosjekt hvor håndverksglede og stolthet hos bygningsarbeiderne er merkbart tilstede. Byggeriet er gjennomført med en sjelden grad av materialitet og en poetisk følsomhet for variasjoner og kvaliteter i det ytre miljø. Ytterveggene er utført med innskjæringer og utkraginger, varierte fargevirkninger og sansbare, taktile materialkvaliteter. (Planer for neste byggetrinn, med ?blått murverk? og den høyreiste portalen ut mot sjøen, virker minst like overbevisende som de allerede ferdige partier).
Anleggets overføringsverdi til andre urbane boligprosjekter er særlig det store og varierte tilbudet i leilighetstørrelser (og dermed type husholdninger i anlegget) og den høye kvaliteten i utforming av atkomster, fellesrom og fasader. Når dette er utført til byggepriser (eks. tomt) som kan konkurrere med byggepriser i andre byboligprosjekter i Norge, må det bety at arkitekten for dette prosjektet sitter inne med store kunnskaper om prosjektering og en usvikelig vilje til profesjonalitet og innlevelse - noe som synes å ha påvirket andre deltakere og ansvarlige i prosjektet til ekstra innsats."









Lysaker has in a relatively short time developed from beeing just a train-station, to have officespace for 20.000 employees. Officespace for another 5-10.000 people, and 1500 new apartments are under planning near the station area. The train-station itself will also be upgraded in the period from late this year to 2008.
Render of the new train-station(the current one only have 2 tracks):

[Monkey]

Thank you for the news, NorthStar!

The tunnel project sounds very ambitious! But, once the understandably long construction period with all its noise and upheaval is over, this should be a vast improvement! Not only for the cars but also for the area.

And those apartment buildings in Baerum are very attractive! The only thing I wonder about is that low, dark edifice with the square openings by the water shown here (first photo). Or is that being demolished?

[NorthStar77]

Thank you Whose Homepage

The tunnel project sounds very ambitious! But, once the understandably long construction period with all its noise and upheaval is over, this should be a vast improvement! Not only for the cars but also for the area.

Quite ambitios yes, but I must say that norwegians are experts in tunnell-construction Did you know that the longest tunnell in the world is in Norway? Lærdalstunnellen in western Norway is no less than 24,5 km.


Also in Oslo, there are lots of highway tunnels, some even bigger than this one. Not to mention Romeriksporten that is a train-tunnel, that takes you from downtown Oslo, to Lillestrøm, 15 km away, in 11 minutes. There was a big scandal about this one when it was built, but that's another story(it leaked).

And those apartment buildings in Baerum are very attractive! The only thing I wonder about is that low, dark edifice with the square openings by the water shown here (first photo). Or is that being demolished?

I wondered that too. Seems like it's going to be retail, with a new public harbour there. This area used to be an oil-harbor for Fina, I thougt first that maybe it was required to preserve it, but I don't really think so eighter on second thought, because it looks rather new to me...




A detail of the bricks(and some people on a conference for waterpipe/etc workers..)

[LatvianGG]

Yeah, norwegians are for sure tunnel-freaks !

[NorthStar77]

/\ yes, but there is a reason for that

[NorthStar77]

Ullevaal to be upgraded


The owners of Ullevaal stadium announced today that they want to upgrade it to 30.500 seats, make a roof over the stadium, and put on "artificial grass"(or whatever it is called in english). The new stadium can be finished in 2007 or 2008 already. But they do not want to put on artificial grass yet unless it is done on the national arenas in Denmark and Sweden aswell.

This will be done partially because the football season is now on 11 month, after royal league started. Having artifical grass will also increase the flexibility to use the stadium to other events, like concerts etc.

http://fotball.aftenposten.no/nyhets...rticleID=74506

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All trams will get increased frequency

The goverment has an amount of money that they reward to the communes that are best in improving their public transport. Last friday, it was clear that Oslo and Akershus(known as Oslo metro), will get 40 million kroner(5 million euro) of those money this year. It seems to be a broad agreement politically to use much of this money to increase the frequency on all trams-routes to 10 minutes, not just the two routes that had that last year. This means that all the most trafficated tram-tracks will get trams every 5 minute. Trafikkøkonomisk institutt(TØI) has calculated that this will cost 50 millions initially, but increased amount of passengers will make up for it after 2 years.

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle977700.ece

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New metro station Sinsen well underway

The most work-intesive period on this station is from now and until may. 91 persons and 9 machines are currently working on it. When this station opens next year, the metro-ring will be complete, and we can brag about having a real metro in Olso

From these poor images, it seems like the station will be in the open. But atleast the stairs will be heated, so there will be no ice.






http://www.tbane.no/artikkel2.asp?id=62545

btw, some images of the new metro-cars, that will also come next year.

[NorthStar77]

Nye Major
Majorstua - Oslo inner west

I've written about this before, but now the project have come further, and starts sale 15'th of march, under the name "Nye Major". 300 aparments, I count 8-10 floors. No prices are clear just yet, but I'm sure it's gonna be popular, as it is located right by the metro-station at popular Majorstua.









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Another, smaller apartments-project

Kyrre Grepp
Torshov - Oslo inner east/north

124 apartments, with a rather boring design, imo. They advertise with a great view though.






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Experts fear the new apartment-bubble will crack

Aftenposten writes today that 32.000 apartments are under planning in Oslo, and they fear it is too much. Especially for the more costly apartments. But others are not that concerned, and argue that as long as the aparments have a decent price and are central enough, there will never be a problem selling them. This is good news for buyers, as there will be more to choose from among "cheap" new apartments(means under 2 million NOK, or 250.000 euro).

An overview of some of the projects. I've mentioned all of them earlier, except Bjøvika, wich is in the Fjordcity thread.
Lørenbyen: 1500 apartments
Tjuvholmen: 1200 apartments
Qværnerbyen: 1800 apartments
Ensjøbyen: 3000-7000 apartments
Bjørvika: 5000 apartments
Fornebu: 6000 apartments
Grønlandskvartalene: 700 apartments

The entire article, in norwegian: http://forbruker.no/bolig/nybygg/article987716.ece

[NorthStar77]

Some good and some bad news...

Upgrading of downtown won't be finished to the big celebration

Since last year, major a renovation and upgrading of downtown Oslo has been taking place, in order to celebrate Norway's 100 years as an independent nation 7'th of june this year. Now there will be chaos in the streets until November, and not until 3'rd of June, thanks to bad planning. Leader of the city council, Erling Lae is outraged, and says that atleast the streets must be free of mess on May 17'th and on 7'th of June.







articles in Aftenposten: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle995330.ece

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle996294.ece
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The metro has lost thousands of passengers

After a stoneslide in the tunnel between Carl Berner and Hasle stations on line 5 eastbound, the line was closed for nearly the entire half of last year. Surveys now show that 10% of the passengers on that line in eastern direction, or 6000 daily passengers, have now given up using the line permanetly. Many are now using buses instead, but it is unclear how many that have changed their habit into driving an own car permanently.


Gunhild R. Farstad says she will never give up on the metro

Article in Aftenposten: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/ir...icle996297.ece

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Ekeberg restaurant reopens this weekend

After having been closed for 8 years, this restaurant in Norway's first funkis building(1927-29), and with Oslo's best view, reopens. It has already got 25.000 reservations!

Here is an article in Swedish, about the importance of this building in nordic funkis arcitecture: http://www.valand.gu.se/konstlab/mike5.html
"Ekebergrestauranten står som modernitetens första brohuvud i Norden där den moderna arkitekturens spann når fram till Landskrona konsthall, uppförd 1963."

Some old pictures of it, from that source:




The view(also old picture)


The sad state of the restaurant before renovation:






The view is still spectacular, as you can see, this is some 2-3 years old, before Posthuset got floors added.


Some images from the new restaurant, by vg.no

[NorthStar77]

Årvollskogen
Oslo north

This is a rather special residential project that is bordering Nordmarka("Northern woods"). The project consists of 303 dwellings, some built in buildings 4-6 floors, and some built as row-houses. There will a shared park in the middle, with playgrounds and a pond. Architects are Jensen & Skodvin Arkitekter.







The first stage of this project, with 116 apartments, are soon finished, and already sold out.

[NorthStar77]

I just noticed on my way to tbanen today, that an office-building that is under renovation at Helsfyr, Grenseveien 92, has started adding floors. Found out that they would only add two floors, but atleast it will then be on 12 floors, so another highrise for Oslo, wohoo.



My picture of the building, the leftmost one.


The view towards downtown from there, highly disturbed by winter-pollution.


When renovated


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Wich remind me of another future highrise at Helsfyr, Helsfyr Atrium. Christian has mentioned it once before, but the bandwith limit on his account on photobucket has been exeeded. This project has been halted for some years due to low interest to rent office there, combined with some new offices beeing built here all the time. But I think we may see this building going up soon. Because I read today that new office-buildings around Helsfyr is now getting full of tenants. And the area has huge potential, since there ae so much public transport here, and only 7 minutes from downtown.

Helsfyr Atrium will be on 38.000 sqm, in 14 floors + 3 underground floors, once it gets up. The people behind the project likes to think of it as the gate in to Oslo city.

This render is made before Helsfyr Panorama came up.


180 degrees










This is how the first floor will look like, with a cantina, conference centre, shops, etc.

[Moolio]

http://www.epi.no/moller/fravallehovin.jpg
http://www.epi.no/moller/mothavet.jpg
*jealousX10*

Why not in Finland? WHY!!?
There's so much going on in Oslo, that pretty soon it'll look twice the city as Helsinki. Oh well, we'll always have Kampin Keskus...That's not much alone, though.

[NorthStar77]

^I have to remind you though, that although this building is aproved, it is still not set a date for construction(from what I have found). This is because the office-market around Helsfyr have been rather slow in recent years.

[Moolio]

Originally Posted by NorthStar77

^I have to remind you though, that although this building is aproved, it is still not set a date for construction(from what I have found). This is because the office-market around Helsfyr have been rather slow in recent years.

I bet they will build it, though. With the growth of population of Norway, I think the city of Oslo is going to need more office space, as it is the capital. Even Helsinki gets new offices all the time even though the aging of Finnish population is very real and immediate problem. I read from Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that in the next 40 or 50 years the metro area will get new buildings and renovation projects worth something like € 50 billion (that's a lot more than the State's annual budget). I bet Oslo's projects will be even more expensive.

edit: I think they made the estimate so that they took the expansion of metro and other infrastructural projects as a premise, btw, so not only offices and residenses worth 50 billion.