Murado . Elvira . Enrique Krahe

Student Housing . Trondheim . Norway

MEK Architects: Clara Murado, Juan Elvira . Enrique Krahe . photos: © Matthias Herzog . + behance

The project unifies situations of extreme intimacy with those of extroversion and collaboration. A room is a powerful mechanism that allows the expansion of the identity, self-recognition and reaffirmation, interchange and negotiation.

One’s own space is a laboratory where to test abilities that later will be experienced in every act of social interaction. Teknobyen student's housing proposes the compression, transfer and conditioning of the relational capacities of urban space.
Assuming the existing urban conditions, the student housing detaches as much as possible from the surrounding buildings and shapes its volume in order to extract potential from the views and sun. Open-air terraces are spread around the building. Through them, students can experience outside conditions and relate with the city and the far views.

In order to stress a local initiative that intends to promote Trondheim as a wood-friendly city, and also seeking new challenges about wood use in large buildings, the entire exterior volume of the building is cladded with fir (pine) wooden planks, displaying different treatments, compositions and layouts.
As a result of a special regulation that considers Elgesetergate as a road instead a street, no windows for rooms are allowed to be opened on that elevation. The front and the rear are thus conceived as thick containing membranes, while only corridors and lounge are able to look over the street.

The core of the building contains a multipurpose lounge with no hierarchy, or spatial definition, in which different ambiances are located. Room floors surround this lounge. The general layout is articulated by stripes occupying the space as they approach or distance the existing limits. Rooms mimic the building's internal scheme, structured in functional bands (storage, prefabricated bathroom and a bed).
Since the construction started, and more details about the building were made public, a vibrant debate arose among residents-to be in specialized blogs and social networks. Architecture has still a long path to explore collecting data and seeking ways of transferring feedback into the making, just as information architects or videogame designers would do.

This building unifies both situations of extreme privacy with those of extroversion and full interaction. It proposes effective ways of connecting the users' profiles and subjective interests.
Rooms stage a small personal world in its interior. They are designed as laboratories where students may test the abilities that later will be experienced in every act of social interaction. In your room you can freely and temporarily transform and wear alternative identities, like avatars, you can use it as an identity accelerator.
Every common activity is incorporated into a hyper condensed container: a mixed-use two-story hyperlounge in which different ambiances are located, an unregulated mixing chamber of possible actions.
Sustainability Co-Responsability devices are implemented in order to share the energetic and waste management.

type: Europan IX International Competition, 1rst prize. With Enrique Krahe.
area: 5100m2
budget: 7.500.000€
client: SIT (Studentsamskipnaden i Trondheim)
location: Trondheim, Norway.
status: project development