The museum is conceived as a confluence of the park and the city nature and architecture bookending the Charpak Park along with the city hall. Like the mixture of two incompatible substances oil and vinegar the urban pavement and the parks turf flow together in a mutual embrace forming pockets of terraces overlooking the park and elevating islands of nature above the city.
The building includes flexible workspaces with a full-height perimeter glazed-façade – maximizing daylight and offering panoramic views towards historic landmarks such as World Heritage St Paul’s Cathedral, Old Bailey, St Brides and the Royal Courts of Justice. Fleet Street embeds strong environmental credentials geared to meet the benchmarks set out by Whole Life Carbon and Circular Economy principles to reduce the embodied carbon of the development.
Through an intensive curatorial process in close collaboration with the neighborhoods residents, more than objects from cultures appear throughout Superkilen. Ranging from exercise equipment from Muscle Beach in LA and sewage drains from Israel, to palm trees from China and neon signs from Qatar and Russia each object is accompanied by a small stainless plate inlaid in the ground describing the object, what it is and where it is from. The art group Superflex took the public participation further into the extreme by handpicking five groups of people and travelling to the country of their origin to document the process of selection.
The plan identifies four thematic areas to position Oslo Science City as a leading center for innovation, knowledge-based value creation and sustainable solutions based on existing and future activities: Health and Life Sciences, incl. Norway’s largest Life Sciences building for research and teaching to be completed by and an expansion of Oslo Cancer Cluster. Climate, Energy and Environment, establishing a campus and a power center for research and innovation between the countrys leading research institute SINTEF, The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) amongst others. Digitalization and Computational Science, fostering collaborations between organizations such as the Department of Informatics (IFI) at the University of Oslo, The Norwegian Computing Center (NR), NORA – Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium, which explores artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics, and many others; and Democracy and Inclusion where new knowledge will be developed about the threats and solutions to strengthen democracy, the role of democratic institutions in a time of technological disruption, increased economic inequality and anti-democratic forces.
The new OPPO R&D Headquarters, or O-Tower, resolves these competing requirements by translating a traditional office slab with the perfect depth for access to daylight into a cylindrical courtyard building that is compact yet also providing large, contiguous floor area. Pushing down the southern edge of the building to the ground minimizes the external surface area of the more solar exposed façade while maximizing views out from the inward façade, which is in turn self-shaded from solar gain by the geometry of the tower. The massing is a manifestation of a building form optimized to reduce energy use and maximize access to natural light.