Nele Bergmans

TOWARDS THE ENTRANCE

transition space

sring 2016

transition spaces

I’m not feeling like entering today. Maybe I can walk

around and observe. Try to come closer, look closer.

Going almost in but still staying in the in-between.

out-between-in. in-between-in-out. I feel like I have

to know every sign that is given on the outside, to be

ready to go in the inside.

I strawl around. Reading spaces that are made on the

outside, probably the enrich the space on the inside.

Sometimes to prolong a look towards the outside, or

sometimes to stand or sit in the little inside created

on the outside. Or sometimes to make you (on the oustide)

feel like almost inside.

I’m discovering a lot of things (norwegian probably) and

I wonder if at some point somebody said stop! it’s enough

now. And if that had never happened, this expanding,

this creation of transition spaces, in-between spaces,

would be still going on. Maybe I couldn’t even see the

real house anymore now.

Imagine this is the case. The house you see now is a big

transition space to the actual house that is indide.

How should I go towards the entrance?

4 |

fi rst: the location

The house is close to the waterfront in Dale. It’s standing

alone, has one neighbour with housing as function, and the

others are more industrial/offi ce.

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6 |

second: the house itself (elevations)

3 facts about standard norwegian house type 2

it is yellow

it has a lot of windows

it has a lot of extensions

it has 3 stories

it has a staircase outside

it has a balcony

it has a pitched roof

it has a little garden

it has a lot of portico’s

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b

a

c

third: the site

You can see the house from many viewpoints. The streets are

leading to the house because it’s close to the waterfront,

and this is a sighline they want to preserve.

This also means that the house itself had many views. From

the inside, you could almost see the whole central area: the

cafe, the komunne, the coop, ...

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a

b

c

10 |

Fourth: the kummune plan (plan)

the building is laying the the ‘activitetsomrade’ : this means

skole, jobb and sorvis. So it’s not in the traditional housing

area, wich makes it really interesting. In the komunne plan,

they talk about this area as the GUIDE. They want to preserve

this zone (there are a lot of traces of the old Dale) .

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12 | childhood space(s)

Fifth: 5 models towards the house (model)

5 steps to go from the archetype house, to the fully expanded

house. Transition spaces are added everywhere, and the

complexity rises. There could also be a step 6 and 7, with

all the information we have gotten we can expand the house

easily in our imagination or maybe even in real life.

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now who should be the leader?

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it’s phase 5 who wants the spotlight!

He feels stronger and better, he feels like he is the most

norwegian. He has the most expanding options, he’s the richest.

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but phase 1 wants it too

He feels strong because he is powerfull in his lines, and he

is also a bit mysterious, you have to use some imaganition

for thinking how he really is.

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imagining the fourth side

the real imagination kicks in when we start to think about the

4th side. nothing to see on google street view, nothing to see

on google earth, no pictures taen when we were there. It’s

hidden, maybe it wants to be hidden because it would reveal

the real working of the house.

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yellow inside

maybe there is no wall , and the whole house is empty inside,

it’s actually the front portico that is the house where

people live in. The bigger house is a big void, also yellow

on the inside.

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yellow inside

or myabe the wall is pushed back so that the roofs makes a

big portico (they’re used to this technique) and this side

is yellow too, and has 2 windows that are too high to look

through without ladder.

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windows

ladders needed.

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or blue

or maybe this side is just blue.

with 2 windows and 1 ladder. And you ask yourself if this

is about peeking inside the house, or the only escape route

outside the house...

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staircase

Forget about the ladders. Maybe there is this big staircase

that actually reveals that inside the house, it’s a maze of

plateau’s all leading to that one window in the roof. This is

transition spaces at a high level.

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balcony

or maybe the balconies on the outside are mirrored inside,

and these are the only spaces where you can get a look outside

a window. And you need to climb a lot of stairs to get there.

But if you arrived, you can also see inside the yellow house

at the other side of the bigger house. But is has no windows

so you cannot look further, it’s really just about the void

space being yellow.

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Towards the entrance

A lot of ways leading to possible entrances here in this

drawing. Some extisting, some shortcuts to the existing. The

house is alive, it’s eyes are staring at me. I know there will

be a point of leaving the transition zone, leaving behind

all the strawling around. One day I would really have to go

trough the entrance. Maybe I will fi nd new transition spaces

inside the house. New in betweens. But for now I just imagine

the house as a house with crooked teeth, and braces to get

them straight.

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