Parking Housing: Inhabiting Sannergata 14
Diploma 2022Winner of the Renzo Piano World Tour Award 2023
Can transformation of a building made for vehicles make it suitable for human scale?
Among the fundamental strategies for a green future in architecture, is a commitment to discover hidden potential in what is already built. Parking houses above ground inside the pressured central parts of Oslo, are long on their way to becoming anachronisms as the private car is politically pushed out of the city center. Although the established structures come with stories, demolition has often been their destiny. The aim of this spatial investigation is to identify architectural quality, as a means to outweigh the alternative of demolition. There is resistance in the parking house in Sannergata 14, drawn by Platou Architects in 1979. Several of the conditions is contradicting to the expectations of an apartment building. The difficult prospect of our high expectations therefore makes the residential program a suitable test to investigate the structure’s universal value.
Among the fundamental strategies for a green future in architecture, is a commitment to discover hidden potential in what is already built. Parking houses above ground inside the pressured central parts of Oslo, are long on their way to becoming anachronisms as the private car is politically pushed out of the city center. Although the established structures come with stories, demolition has often been their destiny. The aim of this spatial investigation is to identify architectural quality, as a means to outweigh the alternative of demolition. There is resistance in the parking house in Sannergata 14, drawn by Platou Architects in 1979. Several of the conditions is contradicting to the expectations of an apartment building. The difficult prospect of our high expectations therefore makes the residential program a suitable test to investigate the structure’s universal value.
Replica model 1:50
Central to my proposition is an argument of a higher awareness of our surrounding building’s values and potential, and further, that this awareness should come precedent to an eventual discussion of repurposing or demolition.The specific building in Sannergata 14 is not listed, and not yet subject to a discussion of its existence. Still, a speculation on its future holds validity as the plot is valuable, and a higher efficiency in terms of how we utilize central spaces in Oslo is an expressed political aim.
7 INTERVENTIONS
STEP 1: DISMANTLING OF THE FACADE
Fasade element are to be kept for step 7.
STEP 2: ADJUSTING ROOM HEIGHTS
The two middle slabs are ejected, one of them transformed and put back on new steel beams and clamped down to the existing walls.
STEP 3: SKYLIGHT
Columns are vertically clamped down to the existing walls, and connected to a net of steel beams. Existing removed slab pieces are connected, and holes are cut, for parabola skylight to be mounted.
STEP 4: PIPING
Partly exposed piping, covered by steel brackets.
STEP 5: CLIMATE SHELL
STEP 6: STAIRS AND ELEVATORS
STEP 7: ROOM DIVIDERS
The rooms are devided by corrugated steel and reused leftovers from the facade.
STEP 1: DISMANTLING OF THE FACADE
Fasade element are to be kept for step 7.
STEP 2: ADJUSTING ROOM HEIGHTS
The two middle slabs are ejected, one of them transformed and put back on new steel beams and clamped down to the existing walls.
STEP 3: SKYLIGHT
Columns are vertically clamped down to the existing walls, and connected to a net of steel beams. Existing removed slab pieces are connected, and holes are cut, for parabola skylight to be mounted.
STEP 4: PIPING
Partly exposed piping, covered by steel brackets.
STEP 5: CLIMATE SHELL
STEP 6: STAIRS AND ELEVATORS
STEP 7: ROOM DIVIDERS
The rooms are devided by corrugated steel and reused leftovers from the facade.
Project model 1:25
Existing and new
Model 1:25
Parking Housing is about finding seriosity in eccentricity, and entering the transformation project with simple moves. These moves attempts to prove architectural transformation’s inherent ingeniousness. We almost certainly always end up with rooms we could never have imagined when we allow some of the building’s original essence to pertain. Letting history interact with the new ideas is therefore not only for sustainability of resources, but a means to preserve historical uniqueness of our cities and making sure our collective stories are not lost.
Model 1:25
A sustainable building provides spaces for a life to unfold. This view of architecture gives access to shake the hierarchy of how buildings are valued, and therefore an opportunity to take even the least obvious building structure more seriously. By applying transformation strategies and architectural imagination we can test and/or prove whether the construction can take on various human activities.
This brings us to the question of the minimum requirements of human life quality, to plan for different people with different lives. The parking house in Sannergata 14 attempts to teach us enough to trace out a site-specific architecture, generated from history, suitable for human life to unfold.
This brings us to the question of the minimum requirements of human life quality, to plan for different people with different lives. The parking house in Sannergata 14 attempts to teach us enough to trace out a site-specific architecture, generated from history, suitable for human life to unfold.
Unhabited plan
Imagening a life
Imagening a life, 1:25 model