FOLLO WORKSHOP
YEAR 2020
TYPE workshop, outdoors museum
SIZE 950 sqm
CLIENT Museene i Akershus
LOCATION Drøbak, Norway
Concept
This proposal for a workshop affiliated to the Follo open-air museum, exemplifies the historical Norwegian farming culture and its sensitivity to its natural environment. The concept is to build on top of the existing scarring in the landscape (parking lot), thus alleviating construction on assigned plot (rich forestry). In doing so, the workshop is placed prominently in the front and functions as the formal portal that is missing to the wider Follo outdoors museum in the area.
The architecture of the workshop borrows the motives of 17-19th century Norwegian farming and folk history, and illustrates it how the nature and the man-made go hand in hand. The smell of the timber, lafting method, the communal barn, the status of the storage shed (stabbur). In essence, the workshop itself becomes more authentic to its era, than its broadly curated collection in the open-air museum. Complying to the plot boundaries would necessitate the removal of the forest, redefining its current use enables the conservation of the forrest and its listed oak trees. This building mass is achieved by establishing a partially sunken parking lot underneath the workshop. There is a sensitive wooden pathway installed, that takes you as a through the rich flora and fauna of the forest to the outdoors museum.
Outdoors Museum
We want to bring back these stories about the relocated buildings from the 17th-19th centuries, by anchoring them in the workshop's daily practices. In this way, you not only breathe life into traditional crafts and building conservation, but also into the historic buildings in the landscape. Thus, in spirit the workshop is more faithful to the old practices than the original relocated buildings.
The outdoors museum consists of 55 acres of pristine lanscape, with a collection of 15 relocated buildings from the 17-19th century Norwegian farming and folk culture. The challenge with this is that these buildings are often taken individually from different locations, where their indoor/outdoor operations, orientation and context have been completely erased.
As a visitor, you embark on a longer walk through the forest. At the very beginning, we find the workshop where all its activities are addressed to the public. Certain sequences stage 8 different cultural features of which the relocated buildings were once a part. This is an important educational tool for visitors and school children, about teaching through showing rather than telling what once was. It is up to the museum how explicit they want to be in this communication.
The equation
High utilisation rate in the workshop reduces the need of building more space somewhere else. Increased use of a building is not only environmentally-friendly, but also socially sustainable, as as it increases the frequency of locals and visitors bumping into each other. Towards a practical approach to acquire this, it is important to introduce these three parameters in conjunction to each other:
Squaremeters with a desire for multiple uses.
Layout that enables a maximization of this.
Schedule showing the possibility of increased usage.
This results in this equation:
SQM + Layout x Timetable = Maximum potential/efficiency for sustainable multi-use and operations of the workshop.
The functions are separated from each other, but accessible through a common communication channel where you can choose to be together or not. What you separate is critical to allow for high utlisation: such as activities revolving hot, cold, noise and concentration work. Based on the layout and a typical working day (08:00 - 17:00), we have calculated an increased utilisation rate of between 56-88% (with the exception of item 7). The kitchen can be opened for catering outside lunch and dinner times. The layout allows all the workshops to be in operational operation without being a nuisance to each other. Textiles have been taken out of the typical workshop book and placed next to teaching in the knowledge book. This enables the areas (29 and 32) to function independently.
Construction
the workshop must withstand everyday crafting, heavy machinery and logistics of raw materials going in and out of the building. The construction is resolved accordingly:
Foundation - the floors are conceived as solid concrete to accommodate these forces, and is supported by the solid bedrock on-site. The partly sunken parking lot enables easy drainage and elevates the workshop itself above the bog.
Trusses - short spans has been applied for the roof trusses (7.7 metres) which are self-bracing. This means that the floor is free of columns and completely flexible in relation to furnishing and allowing machines and materials to move unhindered.
Walls - there are the options of either prefabricated for economic reasons and safe production, or make use of the possibility of the “lafting” expertise by the in-house craftsman.
Roof - The gentle angle of the roof creates an efficient storage of air, so that water runs off easily. The height is also equally distributed evenly throughout the workshop building, where traditional pitched roofs have more dramatic differences in height. The crafting activities creates a lot of dust in the air, where natural ventilation through the facilities comes in handy in addition to the mechanical ventilation.
Pathways - a sensitive wooden boardwalk that takes you through the yard has a repetitive profile and stands on "micro piles". These are small steel pipe foundations that enable a foundation without any major interventions in the landscape.
