a-lab designs the DnB NOR Headquarters in Oslo

A covered garden has been incorporated in the center of these two buildings. This project is one of the three buildings that form the new headquarters of a Norwegian bank, with the other two designed by Dutch architects MVRDV and Norwegian studio Dark.

The building will feature eight storeys of offices, which is topped by seven floors of staggered apartments in a pixilated formation. The construction on the project has already begun and is a part of the largest single commercial commission in Norway, which is the headquarters of Norwegian financial institution DnB NOR.

The three buildings together occupy a total space of 70,000 square meters approximately. Each building has been designed by one of the three original masterplan winners. MVRDV will design the A-building; Dark, the C-building and A-lab, the B-building.

The envelope in the barcode masterplan of the building has been cut out as a strip of 21×105 with a maximum height of 54 square meters. About 1, 000 square meters of common open areas and a garden with terrace elevated from the street level are offered by the building.

A-lab’s part of the DnB project consists of a mix-use building of 15 stories with eight floors of DnB NOR offices, topped with living units in a total of 22,000 square metres.

The design fits flexible office spaces and optimizes the views and outdoor spaces of housing units, organized around a raised covered garden. The planning of the office levels allows different combinations of layouts, from open landscape to office cells.

The building gets its unique character from the idealistic duality between the nature of the office levels and the housing. The façade of the building has been planed for optimal daylight and environmental performance, where the openings grids flex in points of higher effort.

The outer layer of the building has been made out of natural white marble. The second, inner layer has been created out of the Norwegian wood and the covered garden opens through the center of the building revealing its steel structure.

The construction of the building is due for completion in 2014.