Narvik (NO)

Astrupgården was built in 1903, meaning that it represents the architecture of the city’s earliest years. This is of significance as Narvik was severely damaged during Second World War and many buildings were destroyed. Astrupgården is under protection to maintain the historical architecture.

In 1903 Astrupgården was owned by Nils and Edith Astrup. Both the father Nils and the daughter Etty Egilsrud had a doctor's office in the building.

Today the building is operated by Astrupgården AS, which is responsible for the rental of premises and parking. The buildings have apartments, rooms, a restaurant and banqueting rooms for rent.

Drawings of Astrupgården has been uploaded to the 'New-Docs-After-Launch' -folder.

For the densification areas in Narvik center, it must be developed a zoning plan for each quarter (...) In principle, the height of buildings can be up to 4 floors, in addition to   possible lower floors (basements), assessed by the consequences to the close surroundings and landscape image. Further decisions are made in the regulatory planning process. In certain situations, 1 or 2 floors can be retracted in addition to the specified height. (…) The areas should be built with a high degree of density. The degree of density is assessed more closely by regulation.

Distances between the buildings must be cosnidered in a regulatory planning process.

The participants are asked to make a vision that contains a mix of the three (live, socialize, work). A guideline is that the ground floor can contain any program except residential program, meaning ground floor contains cultural programs, office space, social venues etc. The program will be subject to revisions as the planning goes along. Hence, it is important to present a robust concept.

The consequences of rerouting the national highway Is positive to Narvik. As stated in the competition brief the rerouting enables a transformation of Kongensgate to become a sustainable street that is better adjusted to soft infrastructures, and that allows for more vegetation. The rerouting will make it safer to walk around in the city center, and it will have a significant impact on the effect pollution and noise.

Assuming the referred ‘northern street’ is the road situated between the Bromsgård Park and the railway tracks – this is unfortunately not possible as the road is operated by LKAB.

The railway tracks are in use. The tracks passing by the project site leads to harbors in Narvik, like LKABS ore/mineral terminal. Daily, there are 11 trains transporting ore, 2 passenger trains and 3 cargo trains – tour/detour, meaning the frequency of trains passing by is multiplied with two.

The Teknorama center does not physically exist yet. Teknorama is a concept which was developed as an idea in 2009. There has been made a sketch proposal for the science center on a different location in the city, however, the site representatives are interested in exploring the location and appearance of it at the Technical Quarter.

The Teknorama center could contain a visitor’s center, showrooms, a Newton Room, exhibition spaces with visualizations of both universal and local themes related to technology. There has been made initial area calculations and programmatic indications for the Teknorama in the early sketch proposal, but this information is not being submitted by reason – competitors are asked to focus on developing an overall concept for the project site, in which the Teknorama is integrated. This could be either as a separate building, or as program that share functions with other programs at the site.

There are offices, meeting rooms, spaces for teaching and rehearsal rooms in the building.

The offices that currently are located at Sentrumsgården do not have stay at the Project Site.

The Bromsgård Park is going to be partly open to public use. As shown in the diagram on p. 19 in the Competition Brief.

The type of events relates to the concept of the quarter, which is up to the competitors to suggest. A guiding principle is that the event venue(s) should be mixed-use/flexible and within a smaller scale than similar venues in Narvik.

There is no plan for moving the railway station.

In the ‘New Docs After Launch’-folder there is a dwg-file with closed curves (NO-Narvik-PS-M2.dwg). The terrain curves are working, but the buildings have become disrupted. As the municipalities in Norway is using a specific Norwegian standard file-format (SOSI-format) some of the files becomes disrupted in the conversion from SOSI to dwg. The terrain in the recent model has terrain contours with 1 meter’s height.