SPEED Architects together with Maamito is a part of the exhibition Oslo in the Making with the project Address: Groruddalen – From Satellites to Archipelago.

Although used to describe a place, the term Groruddalen – “Grorud valley” – in fact encompasses several places. Referring to four municipal boroughs containing numbers of different neighbourhoods, the name stems from the modernist era planning of Oslo, applying designated zones of housing, parks and industry throughout the valley. SPEED Architects propose we reconsider the way we look at Groruddalen.

Rather than regarding the valley’s communities as dependent on a centre, we should consider it a polycentric area, each neighbourhood a place of its own. Following that same train of thought, Address: Groruddalen – from Satellites to Archipelago suggests bottom-up-initiatives become drivers of neighbourhood development, celebrating the area’s history of rich demographic and cultural diversity.

SPEED Architects is Espen Robstad Heggertveit, architect MNAL and Eirik Mikal Stokke, architect MNAL. They have studied at AHO, with exchanges at TU Delft and Tokyo City University. In addition to working at SPEED, Eirik and Espen are doing teaching at AHO. SPEED is a queer office, who also writes, talks and walks. With a background in art history, they have previously done consulting on architectural heritage and written several fun academic texts. In 2017, they were awarded DOGA Newcomer.