- Location
- Trondheim, Norway
- Year
- 1997-2002
- Client
- Statsbygg
- Design By
- NSW Sivilarkitekter AS / Jørn Narud
The Science Faculty building is Norway’s largest university building and terminates the Gløshaug plateau in the south. Gløshaugen is an important plateau in the Trondheim cityscape. From a distance the building appears both compact and bulky, even though the campus is built on a solitaire principles with individual buildings surrounded by green banks around the whole plateau.
The main university building terminates the plateau at the opposite end and towers over the Høyskole park at the top of the Høyskole bank. The green transition zone in the south was chosen as the site for the new Science faculty with classrooms, auditoria, laboratories, offices and informal meeting places. It was a stong desire from all parties to give the architecture high priority in order to create a unique identity and exciting location to for study and research.
The form of the building straight, rigid and rectangular and extends the structure of Gløshaug. At the same time this responds to the surroundings, meeting and encompassing them. The building volume relates to the parapets of the old chemistry building, visually extending them so that the earlier distant view is retained and extended.
The fasade material is mainly white, in-situ concrete with significant inlaid areas of travertine marble in the main blocks. The functionalistic travers block has red and yellow coloured render.
The building was awarded the concrete prize for 2000.