Halvor Weider Ellefsen

Oslo Learning to Fly offers the first comprehensive presentation of the radical transformation of this former sleepy village into an emerging world city. Oslo has been among the fastest growing cities in Europe for decades and this book spans from the conversion of a major shipyard into the multi-use borough Aker Brygge in the late 1980s, and into 2030 when the transformation to a post-industrial city will be complete.Inside, the philosophy and principles behind Oslos urban development are revealed and the book may be used both as a tool-kit for urban practitioners in post-industrial cities, and as a gift book for people all over the world who want to familiarise themselves with the Oslopolitan way of life and with how to do the noblest art of them al: the art of city making. Oslo Learning to Fly is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 is dedicated to the harbour landscape of the Fjord City, Chapter 2 to the managing of growth through hub densification, Chapter 3 is about transformation and refinement of the already existing urban fabric, and Chapter 4 covers the relevance of so-called third places and their importance in enabling the concept of community. And please, dont leave me on the coffee table. Im made for walking. Bring me with you when you walk the streets of Oslo, and use me as a treasure map to discover the secrets of the city.Erling Fossen is a human geographer and self-proclaimed urban doctor. He is currently the project leader of Oslo Metropolitan Area a non-profit organisation devoted to urban development in the Greater Oslo.

asBUILT 22 Spektrum, opened in 1990, was conceptualized and realized as Byhallen - a multi-purpose .Urban hall" - needed as infrastructure in the urban core of Oslo. This volume of asBUILT presents the full set of drawings together with a selection of historical and contemporary photographs of this iconic centre of Oslo events. In 1982, LPO, a newly established practice of architects recently graduated from the Oslo School of Architecture, won the competition for the transformation of the late nineteenth century Vaterland area, north of Oslo Central Station. In his essay, Halvor Weider Ellefsen - architect, PhD and associate professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design - states: .For LPO, the plan was like a zoological garden of animal buildings, all with different habitats, needs and skills, linking the east and west of the city. For the municipality, the project manifested a high-profile, mixed-use, high-density urban design that pushed all the right buttons - retail, offices, housing, infrastructure attractions, and an image to bolster the capital's identity." The inside of the Spektrum-animal should be regarded as a prolific part of Oslo's public interiors, a civic building fit for festive mass-events. As a part of the urban pattern, Spektrum stands out as a .tattooed building", the curved facades wrapped in a continuous art-work by Guttorm Guttormgaard and Søren Ubisch. The carpet of painted ornamental bricks links Spektrum to another major Oslobuilding, Arneberg and Poulsson's brickwork on the Oslo Town Hall (1931-50). Essay by Halvor Weider Ellefsen. Editor Karl Otto Ellefsen.