Feature

About Ships and Icebergs

Space Group in collaboration with West 8 and Ove Arup has won an international design competition for an urban plan in Tromsø (Norway) and the design of the Hurtigruta passengers’ terminal.

Tromsø – the Paris of the North as it once was called – is located at 70°-north latitude. The location of the competition is an important part of the Tromsø waterfront with a cruise terminal, hotel, congress centre, cargo, bus station and the Amundsen Park.

The design for the terminal is not based on one big building but is more like a small town consisting of detached buildings. Eye catchers are the hotel with a monumental cantilever and the 40 meter high ice sculpture in the fjord of Tromsø, called the Ice Tower, in which the Nobel Peace Chapel will be built. During the six month winter period, the outside of the tower will be gradually covered with layer of millions of icicles which will slowly melt in spring. Day and night during the summer one can look at the sun from the observation deck.

For this competition, Space Group from Oslo collaborated with West 8 from Rotterdam and the London based engineers of Ove Arup. Somewhere in 2004 or 2005 the project will be finished.