Converging spaces, Stein-Atle Juvik
Converging spaces
To converge is to tend or move toward one point or one another or in other words to come together. In this project it has been a search for a space on the island where people meet and where architecture can fascilitate their meeting
Askøy
• Askøy is an island on the western coast of Norway. It is situated just to the northwest of Bergen, and it is the island you can see across the byfjord from the city centre of Bergen. The island has approximatly 30 thousand inhabitants. The majority of the population lives on the southern part of the island, which is closest to Bergen.
Site
• Today Kleppestø is the municipal center of Askøy. • Because of the car-ferry transporting both cars and people between Askøy and Bergen this was the most important converging space on the island for nearly forty years. All transportation of cars to and from Bergen went through a very limited space in Kleppestø on the southern end of the island.
• This situation changed dramatically overnight with the opening of the Askøy bridge in 1992 (12th of December). This event made communications with the mainland more easy and shifted the dynamics of private transportation on the island.
• Waiting in Kleppestø for the ferry and using this time for errands such as shopping had been an integral part of peoples life for decades. people living on the most western parts the north and also the north east part of the Island no longer has the need to travel trough Kleppestø on their way to work or for shopping in the city center of Bergen.
• Since the opening of the bridge there has been a spike in population. Consequently, the borders between the individual settlements has increasingly become blurred. In many cases it would take what you could call a native islander to know where one settlement ends and another begin.
• However, the bus lines have mainly continued in the old pattern not changed that much and for the most part you have to travel trough Kleppestø with the bus to get to Bergen. Today the wharf for the car-ferry is used by a high-speed passenger ferry. Last year nearly 700 thousand journys were made on this passenger-ferry.