The Vertical Landscape Urbanism is located in Holmestrand, Norway, was designed by Studio Hp As + L.E.FT and consists on a public elevator that connects the old lower part of the town across and 85m high cliff to the newer part of it. The infrastructure acts as an articulator of multiple activities/programs that make this intervention a unique urban piece.

Val de Vézère in France forms one the world’s oldest urban systems of settlement. Through almost 40 000 years a constructed geography has unfolded in the valley with the Vézère river carving out the meandering valley in the soft sandstone of the Dordogne area, creating cliffs of 50 – 100 meters with natural caves and shelves. The caves were inhabited and around them grew small villages. What turns this landscape corridor into one continuous urban system, however, is that the villages were linked by the river. The river formed a public infrastructure providing the entire valley with food, energy and transportation. In addition to this naturally given infrastructure, the cave dwellers developed a communication system. Caves located high up in the cliff walls formed excellent observation points from which one could overlook large stretches of the valley as well as send signals to other caves informing them of incoming game or warn against advancing enemies.

The configuration of cliff, water and cave/tunnel, is also typical of any fjord landscape in Norway. Large parts of the Norwegian coastline are inhabited according to the same algorithm: the juxtaposition of cliff (communication node), cave (settlement) and waterfront (transportation system). In the small town of Holmestrand at the Oslo Fjord, the urban context of the cliff creates a rupture between the urban centre at its foot and the suburban population at the top of the cliff.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Architecture Design. Tags: architecture, Elevator, energy, food, France, Hettie Pisters, Holmestrand, Holmestrand Vestfold, Infrastructure, Karie Titus, L.E.FT, Landscape, Makram el Kadi, Naji Moujaes, Norway, Ole Møystad, Oslo Fjord, public infrastructure, same algorithm, STUDIO hp AS, Urban Design, urban systems, Urbanism, Val de Vézère, Ziad Jamaleddine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.