Bergen Arkitekthogskole

Tutors: Anders Rubing (APP), Trudi Jaeger (DAV), Harald Røstvik (sustainability), Sigurdur Gunnarson (TTA)

 

Drug addicts are as a group and as individuals marginalized and less accepted in Norwegian society today.

This is seen both in politics, and in urban spaces, through behavior towards addicts- and the design of the physical environment.

This diploma focuses on a neglected postindustrial plot in Bergen that due to the forced displacement of the drug addicts have become a dysfunctional space, and specifically explores how architecture can improve the quality of life for the immediate area and users in the area by improving the physical environment.

One of the northern Europe’s largest open drug scene was located in Nygårdsparken, the largest park in the city center of Bergen. It was closed for renovation in 2014 and since then, the drug addicts have been strategically expelled from the park at the request of the municipality.

They are now gathered around Straxhuset on Damsgård, witch is a low threshold reception center for drug addicts where they receive food, user equipment, crisis accommodation and an injection room has recently been opened.

Despite a doubling of drug addicts using Straxhuset a year after Nygårdsparken was closed to the public, the injection room experiences almost no users.

The majority of the users of Straxhuset use the underpass in the immediate vicinity as a social gathering place. This underpass is cramped, unhygienic, hostile and now the biggest open drug scene in the city! The inflamed mood of the dark underpass makes people avoid using it to get from A to B in the immediate area because they feel it’s unsafe.

The Proposal

The program will offer new public spaces, activities, and provide a safer and more dignified atmosphere for the addicts and the neighbors in the surrounding area. Through user meetings, and talking to people working with, and for them, I have concluded with which programs are both needed and witch spaces that are wanted.

• A new public park nearby Straxhuset to provide the users more worthwhile social place to stay and where people can feel safe.

• Reprograming of the injection room area of Straxhuset, so that more heavy drug addicts want to make use of this service.

• A new terrace to Straxhuset that becomes part of a circulation to the new nearby park that will make the reception center and injection room more accessible.

• Redesigning of the underpass and open it for diverse use, so that everyone can circulate safer.

In a report on public measures against open drug scenes and their consequences by the derpartment of sociology, University of Bergen published in May 2017, it does not mention a single point where the municipality has planned architectural interventions to improve the situation

 

 

Concept models in the exhibition

 

1:100 situation model and siteplan

 

 

Elevation 1:100

 

 

 

Current and proposal situation of injection room axo.