YEAR: FOURTH (Competition) // 2014
Program: Maritime Science Center
Team: Joshua Broadway, Torgeir Norheim, Nico Rallo, Joel Savage
The Norwegian municipality of Randaberg Kommune, and Jærmuseet, the regional museum for the municipalities are holding a global competition for the design of a center devoted to the exhibition and education of the aquatic sciences and history of water craft. The site is located along the coast of Randaberg, just north of Stavanger, with a protected harbor and in close proximity to the Tungenes lighthouse.
We began by observing existing site conditions, traditional Norwegian water culture and the relationship between the harbor and the lighthouse. The setting is pastoral, with vernacular farmhouses situated within a gently sloping site; the lighthouse placed on its high point. There exists a strong axis between the pier of the harbor and the lighthouse.
It became necessary to construct a building that disappears within its setting, serving to enclose the public realm along the harbor while framing views to the lighthouse. The building is stretched horizontally and remains low in response to adjacent farmhouses, while sheltering from winter and summer winds. Visually the building mediates within two dimensions. Horizontally (land and sea) and vertically (land and sky).
Inscribed in the ethos of the project was a notion of Norse mythology. We employed runes (a set of letters in relation to runic alphabets) referencing a history of navigation, discovery, and communication.
“It became necessary to construct a building that disappears within its setting, serving to enclose the public realm along the harbor while framing views to the lighthouse.”