Molde, Norway

2007

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This scheme was for an invited competition launched by the city of Molde in western Norway to requalify an urban square with a new civic centre comprising a theatre/jazz concert hall, a municipal library, shops, offices and housing. Taking our clue from the sinuous form of the site, its awkward level change and the opportunities for views of distant fjord and mountains, we composed a single structure over the whole site which swelled upwards in the middle (like a sound wave, or the skeleton of a whale) to capture the views and to crown a semi-enclosed square below. The roofscape was thus able to form a large grassed park, suitable for outdoor concerts during the city's famous jazz festival.

 

The theatre/jazz hall was composed beneath as a series of boathouse-like light-industrial volumes, each of which being able to serve for performance as well as their initial use. The library is situated oppostie, built partly into the hillside, extending into the square under an artifical rock outcrop. The children's floor is situated at the higher street level, peering both over and under the wooden structure. There is housing above, all of which looks out over the roofscape to the far mountains.

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