Tøyen culture school

4th semester

Assignment: design a school of culture in connection with the 100 year old high school of Hersleb
In collaboration with: Thorbjørn Diesen
Teachers: Espen Surnevik, Bente Kleven, Hans Bjørn Holter, Aina Dahle

Hersleb high school was built over 100 years ago as a part of an effort to lift the quality of the inner city area of Tøyen. Its architecture and relation to its surrounding urban fabric was of an idiosyncratic and monumental kind, mostly disregarding the established lines of the city around it. As a modern equivalent, the connected culture school is imagined as a people’s house at Tøyen. 

The school contrasts its surroundings as a signal of the importance of its utility, yet tries to negotiate the different rules of the site by absorbing the lines of both the city and Hersleb. Its concrete slabs and atrium are placed so as to emphasize the “educational axis” running between Hersleb in the north and Vahl elementary school in the south. The organization of the school is designed to be efficient, yet inspire a ceremonial atmosphere about the different performance arts that are taught and performed at the school.  

Project location: