Pilestredet Park A Sustainable Urban Development Tale – Oslo

Pilestredet Park a sustainable urban development tale – Oslo is the twenty-fourth article on projects from practice. Pilestredet Park is a neighborhood in the borough of St. Hanshaugen in Oslo, Norway, about one kilometer north of the city center. The project is in the heart of old Oslo, Pilestredet Park is the former site of the national hospital from 1883 (see Figure 1 the old layout) until it relocated to Gaustad in May 2000. The urban development area is 73,000 m² of old development buildings. 110 000 m² gross floor area where 50 000 m² demolished. New urban development buildings are 75,000 m² . Renovation of the old hospital buildings includes 60,000 m² making a total of 135 000 m² of the completed urban development project. The new urban development and regeneration of Pilestredet Park has given life to the old neighborhood: a car-free area, green urban space open to the public, along with 1400 homes, commercial properties, and educational institutions, only a short walk from the city center. The Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property and the City of Oslo collaborated on the urban development of this project following urban-ecological principles. The project goal was to set out the best environmental solutions to ensure that Pilestredet Park would be a leading example of sustainable urban development. Five separate sites within Pilesterdet Park were a joint venture established by the housing division of Selmer Skanska together with OBOS (Norway´s largest cooperative housing organization). See Figure 2 for the new urban development of Pilestredet Park.

The national and local governments of Norway led this urban development and regeneration project, providing a 2-million-euro fund from the public national budget and local authority budget. The urban development worked on nature-based solutions such as green roofs, parks and urban forests, and green areas for water management. The key challenges for this urban development were climate change adaptation, stormwater and rainfall management and storage, green space creation and management, promotion of naturalistic urban landscape design, and real estate development. See Figure 3, the urban development layout showing the old buildings, new buildings, urban space and landscape, and paths and cycling paths.

The project includes new urban development, urban regeneration for old development, and the development of free space as a unit of landscape and urban public space. The project reflects the principles of sustainable development in many areas. Old hospital buildings were renovated to have a modern look within their architectural style context see Figure 4 part of the hospital and new development. Other open areas freed for redevelopment for real estate include modern-style architecture buildings with varying tendencies in terms of external form see Figure 5 modern buildings in the development.

The planning regulations played a vital role in shaping many elements of the urban development of this project. The regulations of daylight of 2% were reassessed and an alternative daylight analysis for the buildings was submitted. Adding to that the regulations specified building locations and sizes. The new buildings had various façade designs focused on open strip windows to maximize daylight entry and views. See Figure 6, modern style architecture buildings within the development.

The planning regulations required stepped-back top floors with private roof terraces which was accomplished in many of the new development buildings. The planning regulations of having 3 in-house bicycle places were reassessed and it turned out to be very expensive for this specific development and increased cost. The final approval included 2.5 racks for every flat in the development.

Many other environmental regulations applied in this urban development include 90% reuse of demolition materials, at least 25% weight reused materials in new buildings and outdoor paving, landscape fillings, no use of materials containing over 0,1% weight of chemical components, Max tap water consumption 150litres per person a day, Max run-off of surface water for each area specified as a proportion of total allowed run-off for Pilestredet Park. All these regulations are applied and reflected in the landscape design of the public space of the freed areas of the development.

70 % of the demolished materials from the old development were reused in the new construction and the landscape design of the public spaces. See Figure 6 and Figure 7 the pathways of the recycled materials and the landscape design of the urban space between buildings.

The international sustainable development principle for the maximum rate of run-off water after development is to reduce the run-off to 25% of total year water amount of rain. The development increased the surfaces that control the rainwater movement and direct it to the soil and ponds of water and combined these features in the landscape design of green space and water features. See Figure 8,9 of the landscape design of urban space and water features in the development.

The development targeted two ² of the most important sustainable development requirements which is 80% commuting without cars. And 30% of the development is to be landscape which does not exist in many urban development projects by Europeans in the Middle East.