HANGING OUT IN THE FOREST

This architectural contribution was made by a group of students from my class, myself included, during the wood course in the beginning of September. We chose the spot because of the circle of stones there, which we thought would make a great place for meeting other people and spending time together, with some adjustments of the surroundings. 

We were not allowed to use nails or screws, and based the design on a system where oak triangles were made by plugging together shafts of oak together, using oak plugs made ourselves, and then tying them together with a rope. The structure is suspended from the surrounding oak trees, and doesn't touch the ground at any point. The use of rope allowed a degree of flexibility which is important when using living oak trees as piers.

An important part of the design was working with sound. The structure is oriented towards a waterfall, and some of the triangles were filled in with wood to reflect and enhance the sound, while as the same time providing some protection from rain. There's also a road a hundred meters below, and we wanted to shut out as much of the sounds of cars as much as possible. 

Another important part of the design was to capture the beautiful way oak trees filter the sunlight. We wanted to enhance that effect in a way that was clearly visually different from the branches, and chose to use aspen pickets. Aspen wood handles expose to the Norwegian weather extremely well, and turn silvery grey quite fast.

I like the dimensions of the projects. The scale is very human, and although we could have filled in more of the triangles in my opinion, the structure creates a nice space which achieves most of the intentions we had when planning and building it.

VOSS ++

School has just started, and the History of building-trip and the wood course made up the beginning of year two at BAS. I have enough cool pictures to fill ten blog posts, and I may end up doing just that. These pictures include, among other things, three stave churches, triangles made of oak wood, mushrooms on a lawn, a very cute puppy, a door half as tall as I am, church frescoes, Gothic arches in several materials, a big wooden hotel, a small wooden hotel and loads of buildings with grass on their roofs.

This is a picture of me drinking water out of a Voss water bottle. In the background, the municipality of Voss.

(I haven't had an Internet connection for two weeks, and there may be one and a half week more without it. Thus the lack of blog posts.)

INTO THE WILD PT. II

This time last year, the people who would form are class were preparing to go to Utsira, to experience the nature and culture and history of coastal Norway. We went. We were cold, we were wet, and we were dirty. We learned alot, and had loads of fun. 

This year, we're preparing to learn about the architecture of historical coastal Norway, among others the stave churches and learning about materials, such as wood and natural stone. It's going to be cold, wet and dirty. Everyone will be wearing at least one green or blue piece of clothing at all times. There will be men with grey hair, humour and a true commitment to what they're talking about. There will most probably be boiled potatoes and people snoring. 

And I can't wait to get started.