How to strengthen access between the center and the seafront while crossing a main through road and 4 railway lines? How to enhance a city center without competing with it?

Rather than the usual plan conceived as an extrusion of a block pattern, the BRIDGING LINES project is conceived as a masterplan in three horizontal independent layers re-defining the limits of the typical urban block.

In doing so, the Masterplan respond simultaneously to three objectives: to increase connections between the center and the waterfront (N-S), to develop new shopping/cultural activities on the promenade (E-W) and to maximize views of the fjord for the housing/offices bridging the railway lines.

In addition to this operation, the connection between the Bøkkersfjellet Park and the fjord is materialized in a public library housed in a bridge-building-tower anchoring the City in the bay. This public landmark reaffirms the will of a centrality linked to the fjord.

The combination of those operations sets up the perfect conditions for the main goal of this project: the transformation of a former harbour zone into a cultural and recreational zone with urban and environmental qualities.