AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.04.2002, Page 42

Skurður og hornvörpun I. verðlaunatillögu.
docked at Miöbakki, and celebra-
tions have taken place there in
connection with Sailors' Day and
Harbour Day, but apart from this,
the area has not attracted the gen-
eral public. Compared to other
parts of the harbour, e.g., Granda-
garöur, this area has been rather
nondescript and out-of-the-way.
Competition for the
Planning of the City
Centre and the Harbour
Area at Niðbahki.
Some years ago, the idea was introduced to locate a
concert hall in the east harbour that previously should
have been built in Laugardalur. Following a preliminary
study, the the Executive Council of City of Reykjavík
and the Government of lceland decided at the begin-
ning of 1999 to pool resources and collaborate on
preparations for a music hall, conference centre and
hotel (TRH) in the City Centre of Reykjavík, with the
idea that these projects would strengthen each other.
As this was one of the largest planning- and building
projects in the central area of Reykjavík in recent
years, the Executive Council of the City of Reykjavík
agreed to hold a idea-competition for planning of the
site and the adjoining areas in Austurhöfn, in coopera-
tion with the Society of lcelandic Architects (A.í.)
Through this competition, the City of Reykjavík
hoped to gain some alternatives for the planning and
the utilization of this area, and to obtain a framework for
the intended investment and redevelopment. The
development was agreed to be largely undertaken by
the private sector and part of what would be paid for by
public bodies would be financed by a private initiative.
The idea-competition was intended to highlight differ-
ent concpets and alternatives that would make it easi-
er for city authorities to formulate future policies for the
area and a framework within which potential investors
would work in submitting their proposals for the future
development of the area.
Important aspects of this competition were the plan-
ning of the area, the planning of TRH on the site access
roads, vehicular and pedestrian traffic, density, links to
the central area on the one hand and the harbour on
the other and the planning of shopping, services and
entertainment.
The Proposals
At the end of January 2002, an exhibition of the sub-
mitted proposals in the idea-competition was held. The
proposals were many and varied. One proposal
received first price, three won third price and in addi-
tion, two proposals were bought. The authors of the
winning proposal were: Guöni Tyrfingsson, Lotte
Elkjær, Mikel Fischer-Rassmussen and Lasse Grosböl,
architects from Denmark. The winning proposal
received the following comments from the jury:
“The proposal shows a convincing solution to the
complicated task of the competition in connecting the
existing buildings in Kvos, the plan for the area and the
complicated activities of the TRH, described in the pro-
gram. The proposal shows in a simple way how it is
both possible to build the TRH in this area and respect
the basic premises of the competition with regard to
traffic, economy and activities in the harbour area.“
The proposal describes the city as a “generator”,
empahsising the green belt from the southern part of
Öskjuhlíð, leading into the Kvos area, between the two
hills in the east and Landakot Hill and Þingholt in the
west. There the construction, broken up into different
building forms and a landmark, connects city and sea
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