Arne Henriksen Arkitekter AS

Hauklandstranda

The large landscape room includes a small grassy ridge just southwest of the parking area on Uttakleivveien.

From this height there is a magnificent view of the beach, the open sea and the mountains in the southwest. To the northeast, the valley of Haukelandsdalen runs up to the pass between the peaks of Mannen and Okstinden.

The height makes a nice plot of land for the service building in close proximity to the car park and the beach. The building is meant to convey that from here you will have the very best view of the beach as well as a good cafe. 

The shape of the building therefore crowns the ridge and extends towards both the parking area and the view. The shape emphasises this even further as the roof tilts upwards - both towards the parking area and the beach, of which the beach is the most important.

The rectangular shape of the building includes a terrace, a café and kitchen functions to the west and changing rooms for wetsuit rental to the east. At the end, towards the parking area, are the toilet facilities. 

From the parking area, a path provides easy access to the building and the toilet facilities. There are covered walkways to the south and north where wind-catching entrance rooms provide access to the the café with reception and serving counter. Here you can rent a wetsuit and get access to the changing rooms.

The changing rooms have a dry and a wet area with an exit and a footpath to the beach. The toilet facilities have a covered access area with a glass wall that provides a view of the parking area. For goods delivery and maintenance there is an access road from the east. 

The platform that the building stands on is cast in light concrete. The building has an outer wooden cladding of untreated ore-pine that will eventually turn grey. Windows and doors are in a dark reddish-brown colour (Indian red). Inside, the walls and ceiling have painted wooden panelling, and the floor has grey granite tiles. 

The outer wall of the café room has an upper part where light enters through slits, while the lower part is an open glass solution. The purpose is to give the café room a special character of both intimacy and outward view. In the corridor to the north, the wall design is the opposite of the cafe walls; the upper part is all glass while the lower part has vertical slits. The window embrasures are coloured. In the cafe room they have light colour shades, in the corridor they have darker earth colours. To enhance the character of the other rooms, a rich colour palette has been used. 

The existing car park has been extended to the south and mostly follows the natural terrain by sloping slightly to the north and flattening out to the south. Both the parking area and access road are now more closely linked to the county road. 

The car park used to be a large, non-defined area down towards the beach where parking and off-roading was taking up more and more of the valuable, erosion-preventing pastures. This area has now been revegetated from sand to grass cover. In this way, the valuable pastures with erosion-preventing grass species contribute to keeping the terrain stable down towards the beach area.   

To Hauklandstranda