Kaigaten 12-16

Adaptive reuse

City of Bergen, Norway

The project consists of three built together houses dating to the last part of the 1800´s and on numerous occasions been altered and modified interior as well as exterior. The client wanted to refurbish the buildings to its former glory, and at the same time upgrading its to today’s technical standards. While as well reprograming it with a restaurant, offices, and loft apartments.

“The client wanted to refurbish the buildings to its former glory”

The initial phase of the project was to undertake a historical survey of the buildings to uncover all changes done to the buildings over the years, as a basis for dating and determining what was the original appearance. Uncovering that the original historic building was half the square meters of the total building mass, and all wooden structure with wooden cladding facing the street, it became clear that we needed to decide for a later version on the timeline than its origin. The version from the interwar period was the one relating closest to the preserved street’s other buildings, so we decided to bring the aesthetic expression back to this epoch.

“Reprograming it with a restaurant, offices, and loft apartments”

The building was stripped down only keeping the historic structure and architectural features, for a complete build-up. The new layout of the restaurant and office spaces where organised in a way to make the building adaptable for future changes, with out the need of massive interventions.

“The building was stripped down only keeping the historic structure and architectural features”

We are  makers,  creators and architects!

Grahl-Madsen & Sponberg Architecture

Designed and developed by GMSA 2023