With high environmental goals and well-thought-out solutions for infection control, Hausmanns Hus becomes a forward-looking and flexible office building.

Hille Melbye Architects, in collaboration with Pil Interior Architecture and Design, has developed a total refurbishment of Hausmannsgate 21 for Hathon Eiendom. The building is approximately 30 years old, with cellular offices and technology according to the standards of the time. In the planning process, it has been important to create a forward-looking office building where infection control has also played a significant role. The office building is initially designed to accommodate up to 780 workplaces in addition to 500 visitors. For the owner and developer, it is important to plan for the building to function as optimally as possible even in a pandemic situation like today. The architectural team consists of Tore Wiig, Berit Markeseth, and Juliana Voss-Clark.

– In collaboration with Pil and consultants in infection control, measures have been chosen and implemented through concrete measures in the planning and design of the office building,” says Markeseth. This includes well-thought-out solutions for extensive use of touchless functions, multiple handwashing stations, disinfection stations, and digital solutions for daily work life. It affects the flow of people in the building differently than in a normal situation and provides other opportunities for both collaboration and distancing in the same building.

The building, covering approximately 9000 square meters, is to achieve the BREEAM Nor classification “Excellent,” with a strong focus on blue-green roofs and the use of solar panels. There will be shared use between Hausmanns Hus and Calmeyers gate 12, which we are developing for the same client, Hathon Eiendom. The project is currently in a phase where it is undergoing a collaborative process with the contractor JI Bygg and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2022 to 2023.

–To create good workplaces with optimal daylight conditions, we have opened up larger parts of the facade. More glass in the facade also gives a lighter facade expression. Furthermore, we have designed with roof structures that are set back by two floors to make the building volume less dominant at street level and to allow more daylight to reach the ground floor. At street level, the facade is recessed into an arcade to provide better pedestrian space around the entrance area and contribute to giving the building a facelift,” explains Wiig.

–The glass roof above the inner atrium means that the large room is incorporated into the building. This will allow for a large common arena for meetings and dining on the ground floor and with open corridors upwards on the floors that provide a nice visual connection across the levels, Voss-Clark concludes.

Hille Melbye is proud to be the architects for a project with the above-mentioned objectives. Such the situation is now, infection control should definitely be a theme in the planning and design of new buildings and transformation projects. Even when this pandemic is over, we may face similar situations in the future, and we therefore believe that our architecture should be flexible enough to minimize the effects of such external influences.

Article about the project in Aftenposten / OsloBy can be seen here.

Tore Wiig

Berit J. Markeseth

Juliana Voss-Clark