Møllenberg: Urban gardening in Trondheim

Thibaut Devulder
Visualisation of urban farming over a historical picture of Møllenberg, in Trondheim, Norway

Our photomontage for the cover of the competition entry

We have just collaborated with Ur Arkitekter on a prequalification entry for the masterplanning competition of the Møllenberg neighbourhood in Trondheim, Norway..

Rethinking the identity and social dynamics of this historical neighbourhood in the centre of Trondheim — today mostly populated by students — our concept proposal explores how communal urban farming can be used as a catalyst to foster social diversity and renew community engagement in the city.

Construction started in Hagalykkja

Thibaut Devulder

Building work has started on our family house remodel in Eidsvoll. with the timber framing of the new extension now completed.

The timber frame of the new extension under construction


In this first phase of the construction process, this extension will be fully built and fitted with a new kitchen connected to a winter garden, before being integrated into the house. The second building phase will then start, whereby the old kitchen will be converted into an accessible master bedroom and a new modern bathroom.

This careful phasing informed the design process and was developed in collaboration with the clients to minimise disruption to the family life, allowing them to continue using the house throughout the construction period.


Thinking of remodelling your home while still living in it?

New approach

Thibaut Devulder
Rendering of our proposed new approach, with a new entrance to the house linking it to the new garage

Our proposed new approach for the house, as seen from the street

As part of a larger remodelling and refurbishment of a family house in Vinterbro, we have put a particular focus on redesigning the house approach from the street, linking a new accessible and welcoming entrance to the home with a new woodworking workshop and garage.

The existing approach, as seen from the street

Portfolio project
The kitchen is the heart

Thibaut Devulder

For this project, we helped our clients remodel their home to create a vibrant and flexible social space at its heart, where the whole family could share meals, be creative, work and entertain friends around a large communal table.

The remodelled kitchen, with its large communal table and views to the garden

Getting to know the existing house

The couple with their twin daughters had lived in this house, located in Bærum — not far from another remodelling projects of ours, for six years before they decided to remodel. Originally built in 1921 as a log house, it had been extended and altered several times over the course of a century.

The most recent of these extensions had caused the sole window of the existing small kitchen to be closed off, so that the only daylight was coming through an adjacent playroom. The neighbouring living-room, with its large windows towards the garden, was mostly used as a TV and music room. Despite its comfortable size, this room was surprisingly difficult to furnish, in part due to an awkwardly placed door to the outdoor terrace, and the large dining table at its centre was only used for occasional festive occasions.

Our analysis of the existing ground floor of the house

Developing a design brief

We sat down with the family to explore their needs and aspirations for their home, bringing in fond memories of former homes they inhabited and loved, and created together a concise brief for this project. Concentrating on three rooms on the ground floor, we were to create an attractive social space at the centre of the house, well connected to the beautiful garden and filled with daylight, to be shared by all members of the family for their daily activities: making food, sharing meals together and with guests, handicraft, playing the piano, doing homework (or home work!), etc. Occasionally, the family should also have the possibility to close off part of the ground floor when multiple activities should be kept separate.

Transforming the house

… and our design strategy to transform the spaces, explained step-by-step

With a clear brief defined, and the house carefully analysed, a solution to unlock the potential of a home can be sought. A seemingly simple change can thoroughly transform the way the home is being inhabited.

With minimal structural changes to the house, we reorganised the internal partitions and windows to create a spacious room with a large communal table as its centrepiece, wrapping the kitchen area around an existing chimney. This creates a unified space while maintaining a gradation of privacy between the more discrete food preparation workbenches of the kitchen, the central table and the desk area close to the new wood stove.

A large French door, aligned with the kitchen benches, opens views and easy access to the garden, seamlessly extending the dining area onto the large terrace outside.

The fully shelved partition, which accommodates on the kitchen side the bookshelves and communal desk space, and on the living-room side the television, creates a soft boundary between the social kitchen and more private living-room, which can be fully shut off by a hidden sliding door when required.

Our proposed new ground floor layout

With the large TV screen discretely tucked out of the way into the new partition, the space in front of the large living-room windows becomes a sort of winter garden overlooking the green areas outside, with a breakout sitting space filled with daylight and plants.

Between this interior “garden room” and the open terrace outside is the covered porch, now free of circulation and transformed into a sheltered sitting corner. Whatever the weather, there is always a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the garden!

And as with most of our projects, the remodelling work was also the opportunity to upgrade the comfort and energy efficiency of the building in a cost-effective manner, allowing for further external insulation of the walls when the external cladding needs changing in the future.

“2hD approached our ideas with a completely fresh eye. They came up with a solution which, in retrospect, feels simple and natural, and yet completely changed the way we use our home to be together!”
— Benedicte Kaltenborn
More articles about this project:
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The kitchen is the heart
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Building work starting in Rudsveien
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Planning permission for Rudsveien remodel

Planning application granted for Bølerveien 31

Thibaut Devulder

A rendered view of our proposed remodelled upper floor, overlooking the forest

We are delighted to announce that our remodelling and extension of a house in Bøler has been granted planning permission by Oslo Kommune.

The post-and-beam timber house, designed by architects Karlsen & Westbø
 in 1979, sits on a beautiful plot sloping into Bølerskogen, a wilderness reserve on the brink of lake of Østensjøvannet, in Oslo.

We are looking forward to finalising the detailed design and the interior design with our clients!

 

The sketch interior of the “skogsrom”, a new family room extending the ground floor, which we transformed into a parents’ wing

Oslo study trip

Tom Hughes

The UK office of 2hD took a short trip to Oslo this month to study some of the city’s new building projects as fresh inspiration for our own practice. We teamed up with Simon of Simon Middlecote Architects — a long term collaborator, both in teaching at NTU and more recently on the Care Leavers’ Accommodation project (more on this to follow).

 
 

Some highlights included the Oslo Public Library by Atelier Oslo and Lundhagem Arkitekter. This huge building somehow feels inviting and warm, and people really seem to feel they belong there. The top-lit atrium connects spaces into a seamless experience without dominating the small scale and intimate areas that surround it. Facilities that we couldn’t dream of having in a public library in Nottingham, such as 3D printers and makers’ spaces with sewing machines and large format printers support locals to be creative. The books meanwhile are everywhere — within touch as you journey around the building but the shelving never dominates.

The overall impression is that you are likely to find interesting books by chance, whilst a digital navigation system guides you when you are looking for something in particular.

 

On Simon’s suggestion, we took a ferry across the harbour to visit the Norsk Folkemuseum and its collection of timber historic buildings salvaged from around the country. It was a great counterpoint to the fast-paced development around the harbour. Beautifully crafted and functional farmsteads, churches and civic buildings gave a sense of a more peaceful time, but also a reminder of the rapid development the country has undergone since the exploitation of its oil resources began.

 

Oslo is a unique mix of fjord-side port, with thriving, dynamic urban communities and peaceful suburbs enveloped by well-used and highly valued areas of natural environment.

Whilst not without its problems, there is a lot we can learn from the city about making workable, humane and happy urban places.

Prototyping with the CNC router

Thibaut Devulder

We have now access to an amazing CNC router at our new office space at Kroloftet. I tested it today for the first time, initially to fabricate some simple wooden gears for a homemade “analog music sequencer” I am developing for our next Ooo-Ya-Tsu art project (more in this later…)

The wooden gears, cut on the CNC router, with MIDI music “encoded” into grooves on the right

These gears were modelled in SketchUp and imported into AutoDesk Fusion, before being sent to the CNC router for fabrication. The geometry for the round grooves on one of the large gears was generated by a computer program I coded in Processing that reads musical MIDI files and convert them into 3D shapes, which can then can be grooved into the gears, effectively “encoding” the music into the wood. Fairly simple to start with, but it worked, so on with the prototyping!

Many thanks to Peter Magnus, expert digital fabricator at Kroloftet, for the heads up on using this amazing machine!

Building work starting in Rudsveien

Thibaut Devulder

Panoramic view of the existing ground floor, all walls stripped to the log structure of the original house.

Building work on our remodelling of a family house in Gjettum has now started. The walls have been stripped, revealing the log walls of the original house, before the key change to the structure is reorganise the kitchen and living-room.

We have also done an updated survey, so that the furniture and benches of the new fitted kitchen can be produced.

Credits to our clients for tackling the demolition work themselves!

New office and wood workshop at Kroloftet

Thibaut Devulder

We are delighted to have joined the dynamic and eclectic work collective at Kroloftet, in Oslo.

In addition to a shared workspace, we now also have access to a fully equipped wood workshop, including a large-scale CNC router, to fabricate custom-made furniture and fittings for your next project!

We are looking forward to exciting collaborations with the many skilled crafts(wo)men at Kroloftet, whose disciplines include (among many others) metalwork, wood joinery, upholstery, boat building, illustration, film direction, ceramics and puppet making!

The collective wood workshop at Kroloftet

Hands-on with traditional arch masonry

Thibaut Devulder

A dry stone arch built during the course, under testing!

While working on the restoration of century-old stables in central Oslo, I was invited to take part in a practical workshop on traditional arch masonry. The course was organised by the Norwegian Heritage Association (Fortidsminneforeningen) for mastermasons, handworkers and architects who are involved in the restoration of old masonry buildings in Norway.

We explored the complete process of building traditional stone arches, using both dry stone techniques and traditional brick and lime mortar masonry, Over five intensive days, we built from scratch five different types of arches, starting with the design and fabrication of the formworks, the preparation and mixing of traditional lime mortar, the shaping of natural stones and, finally, the erection of the arches themselves.

This was a fantastic opportunity to learn new practical skills to develop our continued interest in historical buildings, as well as to network with talented craftsmen from all over Norway, for future collaborations.

You can admire the completed arches in Oslo’s Medieval park (Middelalderparken), next to the ruins of St Mary’s Church.

Ever dreamt of giving a new life to an old building?

Roof garden under construction

Thibaut Devulder

After getting planning permission more than a year ago , the roof terrace we designed on top of a residential building in central Oslo is finally under construction. The work on site is taking place under a “roof over the roof”, so that the construction of the new staircase and roof garden can take place with minimum disruption to the inhabitants.

Construction in progress: the demolished existing roof, under the temporary scaffolding cover…

Samba in the stair

Thibaut Devulder

Following our complete remodel and extension of their cabins in Hvitsten, overlooking the Oslo Fjord, our clients asked us to also fit an extra living space in one of the little annex buildings on the site.

Sections through the proposed tiny annex cabin, showing the “samba” stair to the sleeping space above

The tiny cabin that we designed accommodates a play space for the children during daytime, a small workstation, sleeping space for two adults and two children, as well as a small terrace for summer breakfast overlooking the fjord. To reach the private sleeping space tucked up over the small living-room, we custom-designed a compact alternating tread stair, called sambatrapp (“samba stair”) in Norwegian, which also doubled as a bookshelves for the desk underneath.

We love working on self-build projects and custom-made furniture, so we were thrilled when our client announced that he wanted to build the stair himself. As with our custom-made screen wall in the main cabin, we developed in collaboration with him alternative designs for the stairs, adjusting the design to joinery techniques he mastered, to produce a full cut-and-assembly manual to build the stairs.