Finnmark, Norway

Selvika National Tourist Route

 

The objective of this project is quite simply to single out and magnify the experience of walking from the roadside down to the seaside at this very special place. Therefore, a chief concern was to slow down this movement and make the path itself a means of refocusing the experiential mode. The primary functional concern was universal accessibility. Instead of opting for a dual solution with staircase and ramp, we came up with the notion of making the ramp the common entryway and developing it into the integral character of the project.

Located in the extreme north of Norway, in a landscape almost lunar in its barren and inhospitable beauty, the facility should ideally be completely self-sustainable in terms of power input and waste output. The general notion was to create a human detail amidst the vastness of the landscape that is as timeless as the landscape itself and that brings attention to the relationship between the duration of experiences and the hugeness of the spatial circumstance.

Awards
Betongtavlen (Norwegian Concrete Award)

 

Typology
Landscape, Public

Status
Direct commission (2007)
Completed (2012)

Location
Finnmark, Norway

Illustrations by Jiri Havran/Statens vegvesen, Zbigniew Wantuch and Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter.