Deep inside the fjord of Storfjorden you will find the town of Sjøholt. As many historical Norwegian cities and towns, Sjøholt relied on the seaway for food and trading. While time did its job in bringing the rest of the world closer to Sjøholt, the town grew and became a vibrant place for tourists seeking the Norwegian wilderness, seen materialized in the town's hotel. Time went on and the age of mobility came about, and literally drove a highway through the historical center. This highway, a blessing and a curse, has given the municipality motivation to revitalize the town through smaller and bigger interventions. Lykta (the name coming from Norwegian for lantern) is one of these.
While standing on the edge of the town, you can’t but notice the scale of the landscape. The fjord just continues westward for kilometer after kilometer, until it meets some distant mountains. The fjord itself is flanked by sloping mountain sides, creating a layered landscape that stretches towards the horizon This outermost part of the town is formed by a man made breakwater, intended to protect the harbour from the unhindered weather from the west. In this place, Lykta was formed to become a meeting place for locals and tourists. A discussion that arose throughout the process was how to handle the views on the site, as how relate the visual experiences of being inside Lykta, with the given context.
A given aspect was the use of locally sourced materials. The local saw recommended using the native mountain pine, that had been first sawn 5km away from the site, and then dried for some five years to become the ultimate raw material. The pine planks were delivered with the solid section of 50mm x 370mm, which set the tone for the following design process. The sheer size of the planks meant we could consider making a structure where the building material itself both gave structural sense and spatial qualities.
In the end we found the architectural idea to be to form columns of two planks, forming an L in plan, attaching two or three columns with a floor and roof board - all of which making a frame. These frames - thirteen in number - were set side by side, forming Lykta. The program is a simple but gathering fireplace, and an interplay between the spatial columns creates niches for enjoying the warmth from the open flame and to experience the framed views given cultivated by openings formed by the rotation and offset between each column.
Both the design and building were done on site by the team of national and international students from Design in Context (lead by Sami Rintala and Pasi Aalto) at NTNU within ten days. Sketching and modelling on site made the design develop, and the chosen material made way for a lot of one-to-one testing. The meeting point between the material and sketches made an ever-changing process as they affected each other.
