SITE UNDERSTANDING

DIPLOMA PROJECT, Harald Brynlund-Lima, Bergen School of Architecture 2011http://blog.bassbanan.no

Most of the settlement in Norway have grown and established in coastal clusters and small towns.

Fishing for cod, herring and other Atlantic fish stocks have produced great revenue for towns allover the Norwegian coastline.

A few of these towns have grown into substantial metropolitan situations, (Bergen, Stavanger) hence not relating directly or strongly to the fisheries.

But the great majority of urban settlement in Norway traditionally got established and still directly relates to the fisheries and the fishboats

The fish resource was always important for coastal settlements.

But generally, all the resources was processed and sold in the older and larger towns like Bergen and Stavanger.

Then the economic output for local communities was meager. This was before the advent of new laws that decreased the urban merchant monopoly. Together with the tripling of fish export value between 1840-1860 this led to a range of new towns along the coast.

These towns were to quickly land the fish resources for export and to create commercial opportunities troughout the country as a whole.

NORTH

One of the towns founded in 1860 was Florø.The town was put on the peninsulas reaching west towards the Atlantic Ocean.

The site served good wind conditions for the rich fisheries of herring just of the Isle of Kinn - but several sherries around Florø made the underwater landscape treacherous. Numerous lighthouses were erected.

The site for the town of Florø was determined after a regional survey. This survey emphasized wind conditions for fishboats. Because the town was established to land fish and fishboats.

Hence, the town was to face north.

From the local and microclimatic point of view, north is not always so nice.As we will see, the town centre suffers from this Parliament act in 1860.

The name “Florø” stems ethymologically from the common English word “floor” and hence states the landscape features - a floor towards the Atlantic. The town at present counts close to 12000 inhabitants.

The distribution and intensity of housing contributes to reliance on personal car to get around.

The town centre is not seen as attractive, on average the annual inhabitant spending of Florø is barely 40% of the county average figure. Trade leak to neighbouring town Førde is substantial and undermines the Florø town centre retail branch.

Most town centre property holders blame the small size the historical built volumes can serve. The new retail concepts in contemporary Norway demand around 1000 .

In central Florø the buildings can barely serve 500 sq.meters and the Local Building Code is strict on tearing existing buildings down.

Seen at present, the town centre is easily identified as 3 parts coherently dependent on each other.

The grid, the principal street Strandgaten and thewaterfront zone.

1st ZONE

NO USE

OFFICE

PARKING

CULTURE

SHOP

CAFE

The reason of founding a town here - the waterfront, is not attrative. It is literally a shady part of town. Several volumes are standing without tenants or activity at all.

I see the need of activating and connecting Florø to its historic surroundings.

2nd ZONE

NO USE

OFFICE

PARKING

CULTURE

SHOP

CAFE

MALL

3rd ZONE

NO USE

OFFICE

PARKING

CULTURE

SHOP

CAFE