Mission Neighbourhood
AUTHOR: JOHANNA ROPPEN
ÆRA STRATEGIC INNOVATION IN COLLABORATION WITH NOVOOI
Photos © Sébastian Dahl
During this year's Oslo Innovation Week and Oslo Architecture Triennale, we explored what future homes and neighbourhoods looks like with sustainable and circular materials. Oslo is the fastest growing city in the Nordics in the last decade. In fact, the entire country is experiencing population growth, with the exception of Northern Norway. It is therefore appropriate for both ends of the development that Oslo Innovation Week (OIW), a week-long festival that promotes Norwegian innovation, this year focused on neighbourhoods of the future. What should they look like, and what should they contain to increase our well-being?
Oslo Architecture Triennale have several good answers to this. At the former Munch Museum, sustainable architecture and urban development in the present and future are challenged and explored. That is why the Triennale's program also seamlessly became part of OIW. Innovation and architecture must be closely linked if we are to build the neighborhoods of tomorrow, says Christian Pagh, managing director and chief curator of the Triennale.
“Neighbourhood quality probably gets more attention now compared to 10 years ago. However, there is still far too much damage, where you see that capital interests and private solutions trump community thinking, good public spaces and diversity in new neighbourhoods.”
The Oslo Architecture Triennale runs a rich program over several months. Panel discussions, workshops, conferences, social events, concerts and art projects will be available to an open public. A visit to the three exhibitions gives inspiration, hope and belief that we can build healthy neighbourhoods. Healthier than what we achieve today, where human encounters again become a central part of our lives.
- The individual, society and the planet benefit from diversity in content, functions and people. I don't just mean that we need to build different homes – we have to create opportunities inside and out to be able to meet, both in urban and residential structures, continues Christian.
Christian mentions that several different actors must be given space at ground level, not just stores, and that we must have good conditions for walking and cycling as examples of what a healthy neighborhood contains:
- A healthy neighborhood gives people the opportunity to use the neighbourhood. This means that more people should want to move, and take breaks by using the city's places. It is a prerequisite for meeting and getting things done together - both alone, i.e. that you "meet" just by being in the same room, and physically together, i.e. where you take the initiative or participate in something together with others.
Interdisciplinary ecosystem
On the other side of the Triennale's exhibition during Oslo Innovaition Week was a collection of design objects from Norwegian designers. Curator Lillian Ayla Ersoy, the heart and brain behind the agency Novooi, collected a chair with a negative footprint, a wall of reused bricks, a table made of recycled trash and a sound panel made of mycelium among other things, as tangible evidence of the space of possibility in the circular economy. Lillian formed the exhibition (Re)made: a seminar which precisely explores the role circularity and sustainable materials can play in our neighbourhoods. with Æra and Oslo Business Region as partners.
- We see Norway's investment in a sustainable and circular economy primarily through investments in tech startups. The design, furniture and architecture industries are at the moment low priority. There is so much to be gained from designers and manufacturers who are well advanced in everything from circular materials to new collaboration models. I want to emphasize this through Novooi, and with exhibitions and seminars such as (Re)made, says Lillian.
She goes on to say that the aim of this exhibition and seminar is to attract everything from politicians to industry leaders and thriving entrepreneurs who can contribute to the interdisciplinary ecosystem between technology, design and architecture.
Negative Co2 emissions
Kristian Notland Harnes is behind the furniture brand Minus, which both exhibited its Minus chair and participated in the seminar. There he shared how the company works with what the name reveals, as their vision: Minus will create a business where Co2 emissions go negative. This means that the company's entire value chain contributes to restoring nature's resources.
- Non-degradable materials require certainty that future society will be able to handle this. For example, we have to trust that the ever-increasing amount of plastic will be handled correctly for 1000-2000 years, and that involves a very large risk. Therefore, our main focus is timber, or forest if you like, as a limited but natural and extremely durable resource if it is managed correctly, says Kristian.
The Minus chair, designed by the design duo Jenkins&Uhnger, is based on three principles: regeneration, reuse and comfort. The chair is just the start of the Minus project, which will eventually be joined by a table, a chair and a bench, and eventually revolutionize an entire furniture industry.
- As a furniture manufacturer, we must have a very conscious relationship with the resources we use, and preferably avoid using them. Every year the world loses 10-15 million hectares of the forest. If you optimize forest resources, you can both provide a fantastic solution to carbon emissions, you can control biological diversity, and you can have healthy materials around you in everyday life, Kristian continues.
Actionable solutions
Mycelium, a completely new material from mushrooms, also found a place in the (Re)made exhibition and programme. The mushroom material is growing in both publicity and popularity, and deservedly so, according to Johanna Roppen, content designer at Æra:
- I find that many people have difficulties dealing with the future. In theory, the future happens the moment you have passed the present, so it is very close. But we often talk about the future in different terms of time. For some it means tomorrow, while for others it is considered past their lifetime. When we are to communicate innovative ideas, thoughts and even solutions for a better future, as we did in (Re)made, it is important that they are experienced as powerful. Like we can initiate this very soon. For me, mycelium is therefore absolutely brilliant. It's a tool I use to make the future look realistically bright. It is with optimism that we can change people's habits and will to create better lives.
Circular neighborhoods
(Re)made is done for now and packed away. It is nevertheless still possible to delve into how we should live and meet in the future, according to architects, urban and housing developers and other neighborhood visionaries. The Oslo Architecture Triennale continues at the old Munch Museum until mid-November, where circularity as an economic model is an obvious and extremely exciting topic when we talk about neighbourhoods:
- It values local production, for example, and promotes a value chain that several people in both the same city and neighborhood can work together to maintain. How can we make reuse and recycling even easier? How can we make repair available to a far greater extent? In our industry, the circular realization is just getting started, so more visits for good inspiration are warmly welcomed in the coming weeks, concludes Christian.
Photos © Sébastian Dahl
