Seminar: Skjetten revisited

The ‘Skjetten town’ some 40 km north of Oslo is one of the most ambitious low rise high density housing projects in post war Scandinavia. The result of an open competition in 1965, the Skjetten town originally encompassed about 1500 housing units and included a wide range of social and commercial facilities. While not all these facilities were realized, the Skjetten housing system with its emphasis on modular prefabrication, flexibility and adaptability represents an interesting response to  the social, political and architectural challenges of the post war period.

Today, the interest in flexible housing is again on the rise. Architects and planners are looking for new approaches to the physical layout as well as the social dynamics of housing units and housing areas. This one day seminar aims to elucidate such issues, both as a historical and a contemporary concern. The seminar is organized by The Oslo Centre of Critical Architectural Studies (OCCAS) and the institute of Architecture, both at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Entrance is free and open to all.

Program

10.00     Welcome & introduction

10.15     Nils Ole Lund, The Århus School of Architecture: “Skjetten revisited”

11.00     Coffee break

11.15     Margrethe Dobloug, AHO: “Skjetten – a User’s Manual”

12.00     Gunnulv Eiesland,  “Engineering at Skjetten and colaboration with architects”

13.00     Lunch break   

14.30     Tom Avermate, University of Delft:  “Low Rise High Density: A New Fascination in 1960s European Architectural Culture?”

15.30     Håkon Vigsnæs, J&V architects:  Flexible housing today. Examples from J&V’s Groeningen project

16.00     Karl Otto Ellefsen, AHO: “Skjetten in the context of Norwegian structuralism”

17.00 End