PROJECT DETAILS
Modern Functionality and Urban Design with WICONA aluminium solutions
Fornebuporten is one of the office and residential clusters that have popped up over the past two decades on the land of what was formerly Oslo airport. With its 50,400 sq. meters of offices, 3,000 sq. meters of shopping and 30,000 sq. meter basement, it is located at the entrance to Fornebu peninsula. This stunning building complex, designed by Dark Arkitekter in collaboration with Zinc interior architects, offers modern and functional office spaces for approximately 3,000 people.
Two volumes confine a public square which central element is a lowered atrium. Here a variety of retail programs is available not only to the 3,000 people working at Fornebuporten but also all the commuters that will use the future Fornebuporten metro station every day. The building mass surrounding the atrium connects the two buildings at the basement level. This is where some of the common functions are located, such as car and bike parking, changing rooms, kitchen, and technical facilities.
The two identical buildings overlooking the central atrium from opposite sides are composed of five volumes with the same width but different heights sitting on a glazed base. This gives the impression that the building is floating over the square, due to the contrast of the lightness of the base and the bulkiness of the office volumes. These volumes cantilever outward, alternately toward East or West to optimize daylight intake. Maximizing the daylight areas makes it possible to increase building density. Each floor is planned to host between 250 and 300 permanent working spaces. Drawing visual references from the offshore industry, the 20-meter cantilevers rest on a central core resembling an oil rig. This resemblance symbolically points out the ambition behind the project: Fornebuporten should be a magnet for knowledge-based enterprises and oil and offshore intelligence.
WICONA Curtain Walls to Maximize Light and Connect with the Environment
The building complex is designed to be welcoming and transparent with optimized daylight. On the ground floor the continuous curtain wall from floor to ceiling creates a ceiling height of more than five meters. The unitized curtain wall used for this building was a project solution based on WICTEC 50EL with patented unitized gasket system from WICONA, while the area between the buildings and on the ground floor consists of a WICONA WICTEC 50 curtain wall. In addition, the WICTEC 50 façade has achieved the Bronze level in the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Product Standard. C2C product certification presupposes a paradigm shift in thinking about how a product is designed, what’s in it, and where it goes after use. It is a guidance system for product designers and manufacturers that leads to the creation of products which redefine quality, aesthetics, and innovation. In order to achieve one of the five levels of certification (from Basic up to Platinum), a product must satisfy the minimum requirements of the relevant level in all five categories. These categories are: material health, material reutilization, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, social fairness and biodiversity.
The office volumes seem to hover over the public ground floor restaurants, coffee shops and cafeterias. The underside of the “hovering” volumes is a playful checkers cladding - the result of the folding of the building’s facades under the cantilevers.
Fornebuporten is strategically placed around Fornebu’s metro station. This stimulates a more ecologically aware way of commuting, a priority to the Norwegian political sphere and society in general. Openness to the public is also a fundamental side of the Fornebuporten complex. A big part of the project is open to the public realm: the square sprinkled with sculptures, gardens, and urban furniture; the inviting cafés, bakeries, and restaurants in the transparent ground floor or the retail spaces and gym around the central atrium. This openness breaks away from the traditional definition of an office building by creating a synergy between city and office cluster. Contributing to the establishment of Fornebu as a city district, with new public spaces and facilities, improves both the quality of life of its inhabitants and makes those who work at Fornebuporten every day more integrated with the city itself.
