Supervisor:
Erik Fenstad Langdalen
Nicolas Ryan Coates
Heterotopias are described as real places that exist within society, but that function as contradictions and deviations from the regular society that surrounds it. Heterotopias are demarcated areas with their own functions, rules and meanings that exist outside conventional norms, such as hospitals, cemeteries and prisons. They are real physical or mental spaces that act as ”other spaces” alongside the ordinary. In this project the heterotopia in question is the former woman's prison at Bredtveit.
Bredtveit within Groruddalen in Oslo is the site of a culturally significant facility and currently defunct women's prison. Over the last years the facility has been a subject of debate, leading to its closure in 2024, due to its outdated conditions. Statsbygg was commissioned to investigate a replacement, concluding in current plans for a new women's prison adjacent to the old. This questions the future purpose of the existing protected facility. The protection of Bredtveit does not only preserve the historically significant architecture, but also preserves the form and history of past ideology.
This investigation intends to reimagine the threshold between the former prison and cultural heritage site, and a proposed boundary to a new prison planned next to it.
This suggests a case I interpret as an intermediate heterotopia. A threshold suspended between past and contemporary, and in between the border separating outside and inside the future heterotopic space. The term heterotopia has been and can be interpreted in many ways. Focault was never able to answer any interpretations before his death. This project is based on my interpretation investigating Bredtveit former women’s prison as somehow intermediate of the inside and the outside heterotopia.
The project is read through 3 phases. Phase 1 starting with approaching Bredtveit, as the chain-link fence that surrounds the facility acts as a filter. As I am not allowed inside I approach the facility through the lens of its thresholds and boundaries, both as physical elements and as intangible spaces, addressing the space between inside and outside heterotopia.
Phase 2 interprets the new border as a literal cut through the existing, leaving the future heterotopia as an unknown space, zone 0, on the other side of the cut. From there Phase 3 draws out zones 1, 2 and 3 that acts as intermediate zones. Each zone connected to each other through its thresholds in 4 acts of interventions.
Contact
Nora Otterdal / + 47 46 83 94 02 / nora.otterdal@gmail.com