A 50-meter-high hotel made of solid wood and a new residential quarter will form the core of the new Askim city center. With high urban development ambitions, the investors are pushing full steam ahead, and now they have also enlisted Aksel Lund Svindal to join the team.

For several years, we have had a good collaboration with Karlander Eiendomsutvikling AS, and we are proud to assist them in planning the new Askim. The development facilitates significant growth in Askim, both in terms of new jobs, more residents, and with the city and the railway station as a traffic hub for a larger area. This has been one of the reasons why former top alpine skier and investor Aksel Lund Svindal has been convinced to buy 25 percent of the company.

Hille Melbye has designed the sketches for how the new Askim city center could look in close dialogue with Karlander Eiendomsutvikling AS. In addition to large commercial areas in high-rise buildings spanning 14 floors, 400 parking spaces, and large outdoor areas, architect Kaja Melbye has also been given the opportunity to design a residential building of 10,000 square meters with 110 apartments, in which Bane Nor Eiendom is a co-owner.

GREEN HEART IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT:

In the Meierihagen housing community in the new Askim city center, an 80-square-meter garden house will pulse as a green heart in the courtyard of the community.

Melbye has been allowed to take an unusual approach by building parts of what would normally have been reserved for outdoor space indoors, in the form of an integrated garden house in the courtyard.

“We at Hille Melbye believe that architecture should facilitate good social meeting places. It is an important part of the thinking and vision behind the overall development of a new urban and green Askim city center, which you also find reflected in the community we offer residents in Meierihagen through a year-round garden house as a gathering point,” says Melbye.

Read more about the project on Estate.no (subscription required).