museet i akershus - SIRI & Alexander - COMPETITION

ØYERENHOLTET

Museums in Akershus proposed to locate a new national log-driving museum and wetlands research center near the river Glomma, in Fetsund, Norway.

“Øyerenholtet” proposes three simple volumes; administration, exhibition and workshops, placed alongside the existing path north of the river. With long and low stretched volumes the new museum buildings accentuate this long walk along the flatland - without interfering much into the existing context.

The construction of the proposed buildings are deeply rooted in the history of log-driving - with strong and robust materials such as concrete, log and hot-rolled steel profiles. The main construction consists of milled logs assembled in a traditional interlocking system every 4 meters - with wood fiber insulation, a sedum roof for weight and horizontal boards as cladding.

For vertical stability the logs are braced by U-profiles of hot-rolled steel - something that in smaller buildings would traditionally be done with wood, but in the case of a large structure like a museum and a reference to the history of log-driving the decision was to incorporate a modern interpretation of the traditional craft into the aesthetics of the buildings.

In the history of log-driving we can see that massive wood and steel co-exist, each material takes on the role where the other falls short - in the case of Øyerenholtet, wood takes on compression and steel the possible tension or deformation that forms in these tall log walls.

The proposed museum buildings become an architectural collage of the log-driving tradition, where the material experience of log-driving is transmitted from relic - to museum object, and from museum object, to building. This way the viewer may experience similar emotions to that of workers in the log-driving industry - from sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

Siri Wælgaard, Alexander Karim Tamer Minge Salim, Jan Kazimierz Godzimirski