Today the inner part, Indre Laksevåg, represents a “missing link” along the fjord, between the historic city centre and future urban development further west. The area also lacks good public connections across - between the inhabited mountainside and the waterfront - the “green” and “blue” landscape.

In 2021, the municipality of Bergen, organized an international competition for a comprehensive urban makeover. Our proposal, in collaboration with Studio NSW, was one of the award-winning projects.

The concept focused on four main strategies:

The city of proximity: strengthening and facilitating a coherent, fine-meshed network for pedestrians and cyclists, introducing a new diagonal axis between different urban levels, and incorporate a new bridge that improve “green” mobility along the fjord.

A step-by-step repair and transformation of the historical urban fabric, utilizing and reenforcing the local identity, contributing temporary measures to initiate early-stage developments, and contribute with an adaptive urban morphology, fitted to the characteristic topography of Bergen.

Urban regeneration: bringing mixed programs and multifunctionality to the area. Transformation from mechanical manufacturing to future digital high-tech, enabling a diverse and vital neighborhood, that still sustain workplaces driven by production and creativity in the city.

Public access to the waterfront with an easily accessible network of urban spaces that create good interactions between streets, buildings, and functions. Accentuating three bigger common zones with different identity; a “cultural common” under the Puddefjord Bridge, for versatile use; a “green-blue common” at the historic heart of the area, reestablishing an old water stream, connecting the mountain with the fjord; a “mobility common” at the bridge anchor point, connecting pedestrian and bicycle paths from the city centre with a planned mobility network further west.