EUROPAN SOCIAL HOUSING
Tromsø, Norway

1.SUB-urbia. Sub means under. The name in itself has a negative implication. A lack, lack is compensated through the project.

2. Lack of SPATIAL DIVERSITY.
The topography is strangely, and artificially, flat. The building provides, also artificially, the topography that is missing. The artificial horizontality of the site prevents new dwellings from having “a room with a view”. The idea is to recover this and to produce “a building with a view” as well, by means of an artificial topography. By elevating the building we also artificially produce views and elevated horizons.

3. Lack of SPATIAL REFERENCES and SCALE CHANGES.
Repetition, equal housing heights and similar street designs have made the site even and without identity. The context is the global understanding of the site and not just its physical surroundings. The building is a point of reference; it is seen from far a way even with the lack of sunlight. In sunlight the building is an observatory for the site and the landscape. During the night, it can be seen from the Island of Tromsø and other points along the coastline. It creates a nocturnal landscape.

In suburbs, houses don’t create the landscape, but only cover it. Our building adds a value to the landscape, frames it, frames nature. To frame is a way to add value. The value of existent houses in Kroken is its views – “a room with a view”. Adapting the scale of the room with a view of the landscape we get: a building with a view.

4. Lack of LANDSCAPE INTENSITY. To integrate the natural and the built.
Avoiding domestication, and trying to reach the intensity of the site, the building is adjusted to the scale of nature. The building holds nature, the sky. A dramatic sky, with or without sun for months. A sky that at its most beautiful looks like it is falling over our heads. The building discharges this load. Pools for jacuzzi are used as piers to help form a changing and adapting beach. We believe the new wastline must be in-between natural and artificial operations.

5. Lack of ACTIVITIES INTENSITY. To INTEGRATE AND LIBERATE GROUND
The building liberates ground, as a person liberates his/her time from work, and offers residents and visitors an intense and concentrated space for leisure. The building is a housing complex and a tourist attraction, the site a residential and recreational area. The building not only occupies space, but produces it. By increasing house density, we liberate ground space. Multifunctional spaces and unusual program overlapping. The ground is organized with a system of tiles. Each tile grows in surface and concentration with the age of the people that will use it. The surface of the sand area is 20 sq meters, 200 sqm for several playgrounds, 900 sqm for ball fields, and 2000 sqm for patchwork.

Marking is a way of appropriation that doesn’t occupy space. Avoiding to fill up the study area, we leave it ready to be used. The infrastructure, a net of pedestrian and vehicle circulation, makes space available. Wrapping is the strategy applied to existing buildings (like the school and commercial).

6. Lack of VIEWS.
The attraction to the site is a “room with a view”. In order to have a view and outdoor life, light is necessary. Nights are two months long on the site. Lights go on and off in the site, as happens in a house. The building illuminates the site, creating space and making views. The building is a huge light fixture. It becomes the sun that the site lacks.

7. Lack of CONTINUITY and TRANSITIONAL SPACES
Softening barriers, facilitating to cross borders (in and out natural and artificial) almost without noticing. The building is in itself a pathway. The building and the ground around and under create an ambiguous space that connects the mountains and the sea.

8. Lack of HOUSING DIVERSITY. INNOVATIVE HOUSE PROTOTYPES
Against boredom and solitude: heterogeneity. A cross-combination of different criteria, with degrees, applies to creating house typologies. Besides housing, the “space for living”, our proposal understands that a dwelling holds, to a certain degree, work and leisure activities. The degree varies depending on the inhabitant. Studio or office spaces are provided in many of the units. In some cases there is a separate entry to the working area, or it is located on a different floor, or it has a different orientation.

• ACTIVITIES: House = Basic Functions + Work + Leisure
• SPACE: Multifunctional: Same space, different activities. Unifunctional: One space for each activity.
• WEATHER CONDITIONS: Summer/Winter
• AUTONOMY: Share and Enclosure.
• INHABITANT TYPE: Professional, Family, Elderly, Student, Temporary inhabitant

Angel Borrego, Jana Leo