Supervisor:
Halvor Weider Ellefsen
The diploma project investigates how existing gray infrastructure can be used more successfully by building with it rather than against it. Instead of treating highways and railways as barriers to be removed, the project explores how large transport systems can act as structural frameworks for urban development, connectivity, and public life.
Set at Hjortneskrysset along Frognerstranda, the project addresses the E18 highway as a permanent condition that today separates the city from the fjord. The infrastructure cuts across Oslo’s natural topography, interrupting the gradual descent from Frogner toward the waterfront and fragmenting both movement and urban continuity. As Oslo continues to grow and pressure on undeveloped land increases, the project argues that densification must increasingly be absorbed within already developed infrastructural corridors.
The proposal builds on the Filipstad regulation plan and the planned extension of the Opera Tunnel, while responding to recent changes such as the relocation of the Color Line terminal. These shifts free up large areas of former logistics infrastructure and open new possibilities for rethinking the relationship between city, infrastructure, and waterfront.
The project is structured around three main interventions: relocating the Hjortnes roundabout to dissolve a critical infrastructural bottleneck, introducing a green infrastructural lid over the E18 aligned with the highway’s existing slope, and organizing new buildings along the edges of this lid rather than directly above it. Together, these moves establish a continuous landscape that extends Tinkeren Park toward Filipstad and the fjord, while maintaining the technical function of the infrastructure below.
New housing, public programs, and commercial spaces are layered along this platform, forming a central courtyard above the infrastructure that acts as both a shared residential space and a key connection across the site. By working with existing street alignments, sightlines toward the fjord, and the scale of the surrounding neighborhoods, the project demonstrates how infrastructure can become an architectural and urban resource supporting density, accessibility, and public life while reducing pressure on Oslo’s remaining natural landscapes.
Contact
Jacob Bjørnebye / Jacob.t.bjornebye@gmail.com / +4746548060