1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 3 final (3.4)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 11:07 AM Page 134
The design projectDevelopment and detailProject: Norwegian National
Opera and Ballet
Location: Oslo, Norway
Architects: Snøhetta
Date: 2008
above right:
Open day for the public during
construction, showing the use
of the roof of the building as a
public promenade.
below right:
Conceptually the Opera House
is divided into the back stage
(the factory) and the public spaces
(the carpet) by a timber screen
(the wave wall) along the shore line.Does your trans-disciplinary approach help maintain the
clarity of design development?
Craig Dykers
It’s not about the fact that different disciplines are interacting,
it’s about not knowing which discipline belongs to which
cultural or academic route.
Kjetil Thorsen
I think the design process starts very much before that.
I think it starts by analysing the situation, site and
environment. The next phase is usually a lot of talking
and not drawing so much. If we draw, it’s diagrams, trying
to explain certain settings, which we find from a more
subjective way of looking at the analysis. After a lot of talking
you start sketching. That’s why we sometimes don’t say we
design projects, you know; they sort of grow in a group,
during meetings without agendas.Craig Dykers
The creative process sometimes needs to allow for ad hoc
or surprise directions to occur. Nothing should be considered
particularly stupid. Everything should be considered
important and you have to move through the ideas in order
to determine if they’re applicable or not.
Kjetil Thorsen
It’s like a funnel. You start really quite wide; as you get
towards organising the project you funnel it through this
process and it gets tighter and tighter.
Craig Dykers
It’s very easy to be reliant on your personal or cultural
baggage, so to surround yourself with people of different
backgrounds, academically or culturally, helps you to
question your own directions.Text
1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 3 final (3.4)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/26/10 7:38 AM Page 134