Norsk Retreat Drammen building, Norwegian concept design, New Norway rural properties, Architecture

Norsk Retreat in Drammen, Norway

1 May 2024

Architects: Atelier Architecture & Design

Location: Drammen, Norway

Images: AA+D & Atelier Replica

Norsk Retreat, Norway

Norsk Retreat is set in the hilly lake region north of Drammen fjord, in Norway, Atelier Architecture & Design’s concept for a nature retreat uses innovative design and construction to cause minimal disruption to the pristine landscape, providing its users with maximum exposure to a natural environment.

The site lies in a beautiful unspoilt landscape of trees, lakes, and rugged terrain, with an open southerly view. The approach passes a narrow gorge and requires wild river crossings, depending on the level of the river. The tranquil lake setting, lined with tall pine trees, complements the dramatic craggy approach. The rising mist, the northern lights, and the nestling contours are strong features in this landscape.

The rentable units are remote and provide a back-to-nature experience complete with sustainable materials and technology. The interior spaces and their relationship to the surroundings are designed to calm, enabling users to unwind, restore, and rejuvenate without compromising rural identity and the natural world.

The client aspires to enable others to benefit from reconnection with nature and tranquillity, and to demonstrate we can live with nature without harming it. In the 21st Century, social media and technology are forcing people to disconnect, and this retreat offers just the opposite.

The simple cabin form echoes the surrounding peaks and lakeside coniferous forest shapes. The architecture celebrates the intention to unify construction with the natural characteristics of the place. The siting ensures that all cabins face downslope towards the lake, and find their position following the contours of the forest/lake fringe. The front of the cabin is raised on a minimal system of timber and steel flitch connectors – ‘tree columns’ – that distribute loads to the ground, and where the terrain allows the rear of the cabin to sit on rocky outcrops. This ensures the building footprints lightly touch the ground.

Using the local ski resort transport provides alternative access to the remote location for those with impaired mobility, while also reducing carbon during the construction process. Building during the winter months when the ground is frozen, and much of the flora and fauna are dormant, will reduce environmental damage.

A ‘fabric first’ approach with airtight construction to ‘Passivhaus standard’ will ensure optimum energy performance and a low carbon footprint. The timber frame and timber cladding materials are easy to transport and assemble using locally sourced Norwegian supplies. The roof and walls come from a unique cross-laminated timber (CLT) cassette product called ‘Tewo-Thermowood’. This provides a sandwich: timber externally and ISO insulation internally, with timber dowel connections. This is manufactured 15 miles from the site’s location.

Power will be generated by a micro-hydroelectric generator using the existing dam at the head of the lake, heated by a ground source heat pump using coils to recover thermal mass from the bed of the lake. Wastewater will be recycled through a biotreatment plant, thereby reusing natural resources that are impacted by the construction. Surface water will be filtered through ‘rain gardens’ surrounding the cabins, and then discharged back into the watercourse.

Norsk Retreat aims to reawaken awareness that has been lost through industrialization, enabling reconnections with self and the environment with a sense of calm, purpose, and exhilaration.

About Atelier Architecture & Design
Atelier Architecture & Design – https://atelier-architects.co.uk/ is an award-winning practice working in both urban centres and rural landscapes. The firm enjoys working collaboratively to produce buildings of quality: objects, spaces, and landscapes that collectively create a sense of place, are ecologically, environmentally, and socially sustainable, and that provide good value for their clients through rigorous attention to design and detail.

By prioritizing this approach, AA&D aims to create buildings that not only serve their immediate purpose, but also contribute to the well-being of communities and the preservation of our planet’s resources. Using its “Pioneer-Nature” method, the firm demonstrates that buildings can be built into landscapes, reconnecting people with nature, and nature with people.

Renders: AA+D & Atelier Replica

Norsk Retreat, Drammen, Norway images / information received 010524

Location: Oslofjord, Norway, northern Europe

Norwegian Architecture

Contemporary Norwegian Architecture

Norwegian Architecture Designs – chronological list

New Kristiansund Opera and Culture Centre
Design: C. F. Møller Architects

Kristiansund building image : C.F. Møller Architects (skyfish.com)
Kristiansund Operahouse and Culture Centre

Norwegian Architecture – Selection

Oslo Science City, central Oslo, Norway
Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group – BIG with a-lab

Oslo Science City picture courtesy of architects office
Oslo Science City Building by BIG

Ski Tower, Akershus, Southern Norway

photos : Kyrre Sundal and Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter
Ski Tower, Akershus Southern Norway Housing

Munch’s Cliffhanger

property photo courtesy of architects office
Munch Museum Oslo Building

Powered by Ulsteinvik
Design: Kaleidoscope Nordic

building image : KVANT-1 and Kaleidoscope Nordic
Powered by Ulsteinvik, West Norway

Norwegian Architecture Offices

Comments / photos for the Norsk Retreat, Drammen, Norway design by Atelier Architecture & Design page welcome.