Damsgaard

Infill condominiums

City of Bergen, Norway

The project in Damsgårdsveien is a typical infill project, where negotiations between interests of preservation and the zeitgeist sets clear conditions for the design direction of the building. The project is situated on an old fire site in between historic wooden workers’ housing. Built during the midst of the 1800, as accommodation for the shipyard workers on the now closed shipyard.

A typical infill project of negotiations between

preservation and the zeitgeist  

The site is part of a zooning plan for a larger area, and as a fire site in-between historic buildings it had been categorised as an area of preservation, still with the demands given new lager projects within the plan. In that sense the site had been neglected in all kinds and ways, and as a result unbuildable being impossible to comply with all its conditions. This resulted in a very long planning permission process due to the necessity of the granting of 9 dispensation from the original plan.

The site was unbuildable being impossible to comply with all zoning conditions.

The volumetrics of the building is articulated in close relation to the neighbouring buildings, still the volume gives space for one extra floor and a roof terrace without breaching the overall morphology of the street – as a sort of a “trompe l’oeil”

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Grahl-Madsen & Sponberg Architecture

Designed and developed by GMSA 2023