Bærums Verk

The residential area around Bærums Verk, west of Oslo, has developed into a typical suburb. When a new shopping centre was planned alongside the beautiful Lomma river, we wanted both to honour the old industrial community of ironworks and sawmills along the river bank and at the same time give the new inhabitants a centre in which it was possible to read the history of the place.

In the existing mass of buildings along the river we found the building scale and structure we wanted to emphasize. Between two old, preservation-worthy buildings, we developed a long undulating row of simple timber-built structures. The shopping centre area itself runs like a street with the river acting as one wall and the row of houses as the other.

The complex finds its counterpart in Verksgata further down the valley, where the old workers’ cottages have been restored as small craft shops and workshops.